Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Pursuing Exellence Award

In July 2016, Dell Medical School and Dell Seton Medical Center at UT received a Pursuing Excellence grant for Graduate Medical Education – one of only 8 in the nation chosen, including the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, UC San Francisco School of Medicine and the University of Chicago Medical Center.

The goal of this collaborative is to “Integrate health care delivery system and graduate medical education (GME), such that the Clinical Learning Environment enables measurable improvement in both patient care and the learner experience”.

We are now in the 4th and final year of the ACGME grant and in January, we hosted the other 7 institutions in this collaborative to share and showcase the Interprofessional Clinical Learning Environment we are creating here at Dell Seton Medical Center with the partnership of Dell Medical School.

Participants in the conference learned about our joint Vision and Mission from Clay Johnston, Dean of Dell Medical School, Jonathan MacClements Associate Dean and DIO of Graduate Medical Education, Andy Davis, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ascension Texas and Christann Vasquez, COO Ascension Texas.

During the time spent on site at Dell Seton Medical Center, our visitors learned from front line physicians and nurses about the innovative efforts to create this interprofessional learning environment through several initiatives:

  • Nurse/Resident Council, the “Green Team,” is a select group of physicians willing to champion small tests of change to improve patient care before implementing for all residents,
  • The Distinction Residency Track within the Medical School to allow select residents interested in Performance Improvement to learn and use Improvement Science and Shadowing opportunities during orientation to enhance communication among the care team as they experience each other’s work flow (think “walk a day in my shoes”!)
  • Cutting-edge projects such as the B-Team working to address opiate addiction
  • Innovative Design and Development Thinking.

It was standing room only in the Dell Med Auditorium for the “Shark Tank” where 4 resident teams pitched their projects hoping to be selected as the winner of financial support provided by the Dell Med Internal Medicine Department to bring their project to fruition.

Guided tours through the halls of DSMC for over 70 leaders from the collaborative institutions and ACGME provided insights to innovations that are changing lives for our patients.  These include the unique care in the ED for our patients with behavioral health issues as well as efforts being made throughout the hospital to enhance communication within the patient care team such as Bedside Rounding and the use of CORES (handoff tool within the electronic medical record).

The tours included time in the DSMC Chapel where they learned about how the well-being of our health care team is attended to through PACT, Schwartz Rounds and by regularly held Resident Reflections with our Chaplain team.

ACGME plans to use what these 8 institutions are innovating and sharing among each other for the benefit of the entirety of the ACGME community.

To learn more about the Future of Care at Dell Seton Medical Center visit supportseton.org/futureofcare