Affordances of Multidisciplinary Team Meetings as Team-Learning Activity: A Constraints-Led Approach for Continuous...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Education
• Interprofessional Practice
• Team Learning Dynamics

Background:

• Modern healthcare complexity necessitates enhanced collaboration among diverse professionals, patients, and families for integrated care.
• Multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs) are crucial for advancing interprofessional collaborative practice but their potential as team-learning activities requires further systematic understanding.
• Optimizing MDTMs requires identifying factors that support team learning and promote interprofessional development at both team and individual levels.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a conceptual framework for understanding team learning in MDTMs using an ecological-dynamical perspective.
• To offer a constraints-led approach for designing and implementing simulated MDTMs as team-learning activities in health professions education.
• To identify system-level constraints influencing team learning opportunities within MDTMs.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of constraints at three interdependent system levels: healthcare/faculty context, work teams, and team members.
• Application of an ecological-dynamical perspective to conceptualize team learning within MDTMs.
• Utilizing a constraints-led approach for the purposeful design and implementation of simulated MDTMs.

Main Results:

• Constraints at different system levels significantly shape opportunities for team learning within MDTMs.
• Educators can enhance simulated MDTMs by selecting, designing, and varying constraints to promote information sharing, meaning co-construction, and constructive conflict.
• The framework provides actionable principles for backward design, enabling tailored simulations that reflect real-world healthcare complexity.

Conclusions:

• MDTMs hold significant transformative potential for enhancing integrated care and interprofessional competence.
• An ecological-dynamical framework and constraints-led approach can purposefully design simulated MDTMs to foster team learning and interprofessional development.
• This approach supports the development of shared cognition and optimizes MDTMs for continuous health professions education.