Teamwork Entrustable Professional Activities in Interprofessional Teams Involving Trainees and Advanced Practice Providers in the Intensive Care Unit.

BACKGROUND

Most academic medical centers rely on both trainees and advanced practice providers (APPs) (nurse practitioners and physician assistants) to provide patient care; however, trainees and APPs are rarely guided on how to work effectively together in teams. In our medical intensive care unit (MICU), planned changes to include trainees and APPs on blended teams presented a unique opportunity to design and evaluate interprofessional teamwork.

AIM: We developed entrustable professional activities (EPAs) related to effective teamwork and psychological safety to both promote an inclusive clinical learning environment and support the implementation of teamwork competencies in a critical care setting.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: A diverse team of professionals utilized a modified Delphi approach to prepare, draft, assess, and align teamwork EPAs with Team FIRST competencies. These EPAs were evaluated for quality using best practices for EPA development.

CONCLUSION

To promote a psychologically safe clinical learning environment in high-stakes settings such as intensive care, EPAs in interprofessional teamwork are needed to ensure residents, fellows, and APPs collaborate effectively together. Using diverse teams guided by psychological safety principles, typical methods for EPA authoring can succeed. This process lays the groundwork for essential and convenient assessments, future curriculum development, and systems-based improvements.