At the very onset of the first known case of Covid-19 in NH (our organization) social media was boosted as a means to communicate to the masses; employees, patients and community members. Keeping in mind that in our region these three cohorts often cross-over with one person being a member of each of the three groups. Imagine being a front line care provider or an ancillary service team member and watching the unknown unfold before your eyes into major change on a daily basis and sometimes as information became available even quicker. Within 14 days of the first known case, administrative employees were moved to remote work (thousands of employees across the system), clinical teams were broken into cohorts in order to provide remote and onsite working conditions that limited the amount potential exposure between care teams, and what was a bustling main campus of our system – was now a ghost town. Visitors were denied access to their family member for their protection, the protection of the patients and employees. We were living in a world of confusion and fear and one of the big questions was how do we get the word out? How do we educate, how do we provide a sense of safety and a sense of caring?
We all stepped into building PLNs without uttering those words, or really (for me anyway) having any idea what a PLN is all about. I watched out Communications and Marketing team implement a series of Facebook live events and community updates by our chief officer team. It wasn’t long before our organization was tied closely to the State of NH as the experts untangled the challenges of Covid-19 and its treatment. Videos were produced to send messages, to create a sense of caring and collaboration and intranet sites were built by our Human Resources functions (benefits, learning and organizational development) to share learning resources and wellness/well-being resources for employees. Barriers were broken down in our speed of agility- a pace we had never seen before. Teams were stood up and used technology to learn and connect (WebEx and Zoom) and mind you there were major growing pains!
PLNs were sprouting up through tele-medicine (a system we had in place, yet not in a broad scope). Soon our patients were connecting at a regular basis with their care providers through a screen. So Jetson’ like. We moved at the speed of light, we smoothed the sadness and despair as we were able; sometimes, we simply were not able. Online exercise and medication opportunities became more widely used and our leaders transformed themselves and their teams. We fully transitioned to virtual interviewing for all residency and fellowship programs. This is now a national movement that has continued into year three and what started as a means for safety has morphed into a system of equity in the entire GME Match system.
The formal sense of PLNs and schools that have executed on global learning networks are known to share 7 common traits (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011). I am going out on limb with language freedom to align them with medical education and what Covid-19 has brought us – a new way of being, opportunity through the darkness and the challenge of how to keep the energy of agility in front of us and never to settle back in to the slow politics in health care to move ahead with innovation.
- Residents are better prepared for the practice of medicine in the 21st Century: critical thinking/problem solving, data driven decision making, collaboration and leading without authority, agility in giving and receiving feedback, entrepreneurial spirit and truth speaking, and curiosity and imagination, Wagner (2010) as cited in Richardson & Mancabelli (2011).
- Clinical learning environments are more engaging.
- Residents are responsible and take ownership of their own learning.
- Clinical education is more individualized.
- Faculty become better at their jobs and build problem-solving capacity.
- Residents are safer, practice self-care and are supported in their well-being.
- Academic Medical Centers save time and money
Medical Education in general has become more agile since our first day of Covid-19 and I have faith that we will continue to grow in the concepts of PLNs and I look forward to being along for the ride!
Richardson, W., & Mancabelli, R. (2011). Personal learning networks: Using the power of connections to transform education. Solution Tree Press.