Low-touch approach empowering clinical teams to improve the medical on-call communication experience.

Background/purpose: Team functioning is integral to providing high quality patient care. Improving communication during on-call medical coverage requires a level of individual engagement that can be challenging to achieve in large organisations, particularly in a climate of high population healthcare needs and health human resource limitations. This project represents a novel approach through engaging care providers in addressing on-call communication culture using a systems approach and quality improvement methodology.

Methods: Factors that influence the interdisciplinary experience of making, receiving and responding to calls about patient care were identified. An asynchronous action series addressed the key drivers of a good call experience.

Results: The Good Call Action Series was developed collaboratively by interdisciplinary teams. Six multidisciplinary teams across seven specialties participated over 5 months. A modified team effectiveness score demonstrated a 13% improvement on completion of the action series.

Conclusion: System thinking can be effectively applied to the complexity of the on-call experience for all members of the healthcare team. Clinical teams can develop team functioning skills and solve complex on-call communication issues with minimal support and without structured quality improvement training. Low-touch, time-efficient activities designed and delivered using quality improvement methodology can effectively address team-based care delivery challenges.