STFM ENHANCES ITS LEADING CHANGE OFFERINGS

doi:10.1370/afm.2219

Training future leaders is key to family medicine’s growth. STFM launched the first Leading Change Task Force in 2013 to create online learning modules to develop leaders in all areas of family medicine. The second Leading Change Taskforce created the Leading Change Fellowship in 2015 to educate and empower family medicine faculty to lead change within their institutions, larger surrounding environments, and at the national level. The fellowship has graduated 32 fellows.

In 2018, STFM activities centered around leading change are undergoing the following changes and enhancements.

Revamped Online Leading Change Course

STFM has reorganized its online Leading Change Course into shorter, more engaging modules (usually 3 to 5 minutes long) with quizzes and video vignettes to increase content retention. Experts featured in the vignettes include Mark Loafman, MD, MPH; Grant Greenberg, MD, MHSA, MA; Amy Odom, DO; and John Bachman, MD.

The learning experience uses updated technologies so the course is accessible from mobile devices as well as desktop computers. The course can be taken with a specific change project in mind or it can be used as a tool to learn more about how change happens in an institution.

A new Leading Change Workbook contains handouts and brief assignments for individual participants to reflect on and apply what they learned. Group learning activities are embedded within the modules.

Learners who complete the course receive a certificate of participation. The Leading Change Course is free to faculty, residents, and students with an account on STFM.org. Membership in STFM is not required.

New Leadership

Grant Greenberg, MD, MHSA, MA has recently been named Leading Change Fellowship Chair. “The importance of developing leaders in family medicine who can facilitate and manage change is the quintessential skill for the future of our profession. In my role as department chair at Lehigh Valley Health Network, I am immersed in change management at all levels and I have spent most of my career developing educational and leadership skills to facilitate successful change,” said Dr Greenberg. “I’ve found that successful change involves consensus, organization, communication, collaboration, and trust in leadership.”

New Name

Beginning with the 2019 class, The Leading Change Fellowship will be called the Leading Change Institute. “We felt that, due to complexity of the content that is geared toward mid to senior faculty, that new name was more representative of the program,” said Dr Greenberg.

The Leading Change Institute educates and empowers family medicine faculty to lead transformational change within their institutions, larger surrounding environments, and at the national level. Throughout the fellowship year, teams interact with mentors and attend training sessions at STFM conferences and via video conference. Fellows participate as interprofessional dyads and will implement a practice change. “The dyad is unique to this fellowship and it is thought that leading change is not a solo responsibility/act and therefore the dyad structure is essential,” said Dr Greenberg. The dyad format recognizes that leadership, especially leadership around change, must include a highly functioning team and the dyad is the first step in that process.

The 2019–2020 Institute will begin at the STFM Annual Spring Conference, with a mid-year meeting at the Conference on Practice Improvement, culminating with graduation at the following STFM Annual Spring Conference. The dyad teams will also present their projects to a national audience at the STFM Annual Spring Conference.