An Innovative Team Collaboration Assessment Tool for a Quality Improvement Curriculum

The success of quality improvement (QI) initiatives is significantly dependent on the effective functioning of the team responsible for the project. To our knowledge, there is no published literature on performance-based team assessment tools in the context of a QI curriculum. This study demonstrates the validity, feasibility, and acceptability of an objective structured clinical examination station designed to assess competency in teamwork at the completion of a QI curriculum taught in a graduate medical education program. Further research with multiple teams and during a longer period will be needed to better understand the psychometric properties and predictive validity of the teamwork objective structured clinical examination station. (Am J Med Qual 2009;24:6-11)