Teamwork Defense

This method is used as an active knowledge sharing event following a team exercise or project. In terms of Boom’s Taxonomy, students are working at the analysis level so the method must be conducted in the overall context of a larger strategy. The idea is that students have already worked in teams to complete one or more previous assignments like case studies. The method works best if each team completed a different case study, each team conducted a root cause analyze of their case study, and each team proposed a solution to resolve the case situation. Teamwork Defense is a share-out event that is conducted after teams completed the previous work. It allows teams to analyze each others’ conclusions thus sharing what will usually be diverse approaches to different problems.

Preconditions

• Students previously worked in teams on different case studies.
• Students worked through lower level cognitive domains.
• The different case studies relate to a central concept.

Example Knowledge Sharing Event

This example was conducted in a Healthcare Information Management System graduate course.  Students were divided into six teams. Each team analyzed a different case study on healthcare system life-cycle development topic. The case studies included:

• Planning an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Implementation
• Implementing a Telemedicine Solution.
• Replacing a Practice Management System.
• Concerns and Workaround with a Clinical Documentation System.
• Strategies for Implementing CPOE.
• Implementing a Syndromic Surveillance System.

Case studies were adapted from Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. (2009). Health care information systems: a practical approach for health care management (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Learning Outcomes

The learning outcome for the previous team projects included the following:

• Explain basic terminology regarding information systems (IS) in general, and health care information systems (HCIS) in particular.
• Illustrate the systems approach to problem solving and the systems life cycle.
• Identify and discuss major trends in information technology.
• Describe the importance of physician participation and teamwork in selecting and deploying management information systems

The goals for the share out activity included the following:

• Allows participants to dive deeply into the Systems Development Life-Cycle (SDLC) which is the corner stone of MIS.
• Helps prepare the HCIS solutions team for the final presentation.
• Provides an opportunity for students to look at a case scenario from the perspective of an HCIS consultant.
• Creates a knowledge sharing event so that teams may share their HCIS focus area with peers.

Assessment Strategy

Each team was asked to assess the performance of another team using the following rubric:

Instructional Strategy

• Several rounds of engagement were scheduled. Each team functioned as a consulting team in one round and as a client team in another. The consulting team interviewed a client team concerning their scenario and assessed their analysis using the rubric. The consulting team prepared for the engagement by reviewing Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) concept and how it applies to Health Care Information Systems situations in general and conducts a background review of the client team’s case study. Since the consulting team completed their own case study they already have this background from the client’s perspective.
• The client team prepares an informal presentation to the consulting team on the results of their case study. The team should demonstrate understanding of SDLC as it relates to their scenario. Handouts or other presentation support is highly encouraged.
• The class conducts the exercise in three rounds of approximately 20 minutes each so that each team functions once as a consulting team and once as a client team.
• Following the round, the consulting team will evaluate the client team using the grading rubric at the end of this document.

Typical Rotation