Development of a Brief, Positively Framed Care Team Experience Measure.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Organizational Psychology
• Medical Education

Background:

• Existing clinician experience measures are often lengthy, negatively framed, or focus on individual well-being.
• A brief, positive, team-oriented measure is needed to guide organizational improvement efforts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a brief, positively framed, team-oriented care team experience measure (CTEM).
• To evaluate the performance of the CTEM in comparison to the Team Climate Inventory (TCI).

Main Methods:

• Developed and refined a 12-item measure based on existing scales and leader input.
• Administered the measure and the TCI to patient-facing employees in a statewide musculoskeletal practice.
• Utilized factor analysis and item response theory to select the best three items for the CTEM, validating its performance.

Main Results:

• The three-item CTEM demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach α = 0.77).
• The CTEM showed a strong correlation with the TCI (Spearman ρ = 0.77), supporting convergent validity.
• The measure exhibited a limited floor effect (1.3%) and a notable ceiling effect (37%).

Conclusions:

• A brief, positively framed, team-oriented measure (CTEM) can effectively quantify clinician and care team experience.
• The CTEM offers a practical and feasible method for health organizations to monitor and improve clinician experience and engagement.