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The Teaching Committee of the European Association for Communication in Healthcare (tEACH): Activities and updates
Patient Education and Counseling 98 (2015) 1167–1168
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Patient Education and Counseling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pateducou
EACH Pages
The Teaching Committee of the European Association for Communication in Healthcare (tEACH): Activities and updates 1. Resources to help in deciding what content to teach and assess:
tEACH, one of the three standing committees of EACH, is pleased to have the opportunity to inform the readers of Patient Education and Counseling about our current and future activities. The aim of tEACH is to provide support, resources and sharing of expertise about teaching, curriculum development and assessment for clinical communication teachers across Europe and beyond. tEACH is made up of representatives from more than 20 EACH member countries involved in communication education for a variety of health care professions (medicine, nursing, dentistry, etc), with experience across the educational continuum in teaching, assessment and curriculum development. Since its inception in 2008, tEACH has been continuously working on developing, collecting and collating communication material in order to enhance education in health care professions. We encourage you to visit our webpages, which offer educators a broad variety of tools to be used in curriculum development, teaching and assessment of communication skills http://www.each.eu/teaching/. In addition, we offer a series of highly experiential train the trainer courses on an annual basis focusing on communication skills teaching, curriculum development and assessment http://www. each.eu/teaching/courses/. We would like to take the opportunity in these brief pages to highlight some of the resources tEACH has made available that we believe can help meet the needs of both novice and experienced professionals involved in health care communication education. Our searchable database currently contains over 150 teaching and assessment tools shared with us by communication teachers from around the world http://www.each.eu/teaching/resources/. These materials come from and can be used for teaching a variety of disciplines/professions, levels of learners, topics and both basic and advanced communication skills. Tools are available not only in English but in several other European languages. We strongly encourage you to take a little time to look through some of these high quality and useful resources. Below we describe examples of the range of available tEACH resources that can be combined to help you in meeting your communication education needs, whether you are developing a brand new communication skills curriculum or seeking to enhance your existing health care education.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2015.07.018 0738-3991/ © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Communication models and objectives: The database contains a variety of evidence based models that outline the key objectives and skills that need to be included in communication skills curriculum (i.e. Calgary-Cambridge Guide, the Four habits model, etc). In addition, the Core Curriculum Subgroup of tEACH has developed the Health Care Professions Core Communication Curriculum (HPCCC), which provides a guide for communication curriculum development in all health care professions and has mapped these objectives to many of the teaching and assessment tools. These models can be used to guide curriculum planning and enhancement in deciding what content to include in communication skills education. Courses: The annual 2-day tEACH course on “What to Teach in Communication Skills Teaching: Structure and Skills” focuses on the various models in use to conceptualise health care communication and how to utilise these to analyse communication skills in observed encounters with patients. The aim of the course is to help participants clarify what they are trying to teach and learn, define the individual specific skills of communication and break down the complex task of the interview into its individual components. Teaching tools: Teaching tools on the database include descriptions/ materials for teaching core communication skills such as history taking and relationship building as well as more advanced skills such as bad news telling, shared decision making, etc. Examples of these resources include facilitator guides for small group sessions, simulated patient cases, PowerPoints, etc. as well as descriptions of comprehensive curriculum approaches. Assessment tools: Our database of more than 30 assessment tools provides a broad range of approaches to assessing learners’ communication skills. 2. Resources to help in deciding how to teach and assess communication skills Comprehensive curriculum examples: The database also includes comprehensive curricula. A number of health professional programs have shared their overall approach to teaching communication skills to health professional learners at a variety of levels (from first year medical students to final year and postgraduates) focusing on both basic and advanced topics.
1168
Patient Education and Counseling 98 (2015) 1167–1168
Teaching tools: A wide variety of tools in the database provide detailed guidance on methods for teaching communication, both generally as well as in relation to specific contexts and topics. Tools include guidelines for effective experiential teaching methods such as how to give feedback and effective facilitation as well as small group experiential teaching modules and facilitator guides.
in healthcare. As an example, for the last 2 years , tEACH has worked with EACH members in Poland to establish a network of communication teachers to enhance communication education in Poland.
Assessment resources: The tEACH assessment subgroup has developed guidelines for effective communication assessment as well as a 2-day course which explores both what and how to incorporate a variety of assessment methods into evaluation of learners’ skills. Courses: The How to Teach Communication course focuses on key components of effective experiential communication skills training sessions using role play, video, small groups and simulated patients and feedback to enhance learners’ communication skills. The Curriculum Development in Communication Teaching courses guides participants through the development of communication curriculum to meet their institutional needs. 3. Networking and sharing your expertise with your communication teaching colleagues We encourage all communication teachers to contribute to current tEACH resources, in particular teaching and assessment tools and curricula, as a way to share their experiences and expertise with colleagues around the world. Please visit our webpages to see how to submit resourceshttp://www.each.eu/teaching/submit-resourceinformation/. Our newest focus is to help communication teachers to network with each other within their own countries and disciplines and a new tEACH subgroup has recently formed to facilitate this process. We will communicate more about this through our website, newsletters and these pages in the near future.
Bydgoszcz April 2015 tEACH members have facilitated 5 different train the trainer workshops for communication teachers and will be key facilitators during a Poland wide symposium on communication in healthcare this autumn. The Poland tEACH network has found the wide variety of tEACH resources including consultation with tEACH members extremely helpful in this important effort. tEACH is open to assisting with similar efforts in other countries in future.
Project highlight: tEACH Poland One aim of tEACH is to help communication teachers within individual countries, disciplines or even institutions to develop and enhance approaches to communication teaching and assessment
Marcy Rosenbaum Chair
Cadja Bachmann Co-Chair
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Patient Education and Counseling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pateducou
EACH Pages
The Teaching Committee of the European Association for Communication in Healthcare (tEACH): Activities and updates 1. Resources to help in deciding what content to teach and assess:
tEACH, one of the three standing committees of EACH, is pleased to have the opportunity to inform the readers of Patient Education and Counseling about our current and future activities. The aim of tEACH is to provide support, resources and sharing of expertise about teaching, curriculum development and assessment for clinical communication teachers across Europe and beyond. tEACH is made up of representatives from more than 20 EACH member countries involved in communication education for a variety of health care professions (medicine, nursing, dentistry, etc), with experience across the educational continuum in teaching, assessment and curriculum development. Since its inception in 2008, tEACH has been continuously working on developing, collecting and collating communication material in order to enhance education in health care professions. We encourage you to visit our webpages, which offer educators a broad variety of tools to be used in curriculum development, teaching and assessment of communication skills http://www.each.eu/teaching/. In addition, we offer a series of highly experiential train the trainer courses on an annual basis focusing on communication skills teaching, curriculum development and assessment http://www. each.eu/teaching/courses/. We would like to take the opportunity in these brief pages to highlight some of the resources tEACH has made available that we believe can help meet the needs of both novice and experienced professionals involved in health care communication education. Our searchable database currently contains over 150 teaching and assessment tools shared with us by communication teachers from around the world http://www.each.eu/teaching/resources/. These materials come from and can be used for teaching a variety of disciplines/professions, levels of learners, topics and both basic and advanced communication skills. Tools are available not only in English but in several other European languages. We strongly encourage you to take a little time to look through some of these high quality and useful resources. Below we describe examples of the range of available tEACH resources that can be combined to help you in meeting your communication education needs, whether you are developing a brand new communication skills curriculum or seeking to enhance your existing health care education.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2015.07.018 0738-3991/ © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Communication models and objectives: The database contains a variety of evidence based models that outline the key objectives and skills that need to be included in communication skills curriculum (i.e. Calgary-Cambridge Guide, the Four habits model, etc). In addition, the Core Curriculum Subgroup of tEACH has developed the Health Care Professions Core Communication Curriculum (HPCCC), which provides a guide for communication curriculum development in all health care professions and has mapped these objectives to many of the teaching and assessment tools. These models can be used to guide curriculum planning and enhancement in deciding what content to include in communication skills education. Courses: The annual 2-day tEACH course on “What to Teach in Communication Skills Teaching: Structure and Skills” focuses on the various models in use to conceptualise health care communication and how to utilise these to analyse communication skills in observed encounters with patients. The aim of the course is to help participants clarify what they are trying to teach and learn, define the individual specific skills of communication and break down the complex task of the interview into its individual components. Teaching tools: Teaching tools on the database include descriptions/ materials for teaching core communication skills such as history taking and relationship building as well as more advanced skills such as bad news telling, shared decision making, etc. Examples of these resources include facilitator guides for small group sessions, simulated patient cases, PowerPoints, etc. as well as descriptions of comprehensive curriculum approaches. Assessment tools: Our database of more than 30 assessment tools provides a broad range of approaches to assessing learners’ communication skills. 2. Resources to help in deciding how to teach and assess communication skills Comprehensive curriculum examples: The database also includes comprehensive curricula. A number of health professional programs have shared their overall approach to teaching communication skills to health professional learners at a variety of levels (from first year medical students to final year and postgraduates) focusing on both basic and advanced topics.
1168
Patient Education and Counseling 98 (2015) 1167–1168
Teaching tools: A wide variety of tools in the database provide detailed guidance on methods for teaching communication, both generally as well as in relation to specific contexts and topics. Tools include guidelines for effective experiential teaching methods such as how to give feedback and effective facilitation as well as small group experiential teaching modules and facilitator guides.
in healthcare. As an example, for the last 2 years , tEACH has worked with EACH members in Poland to establish a network of communication teachers to enhance communication education in Poland.
Assessment resources: The tEACH assessment subgroup has developed guidelines for effective communication assessment as well as a 2-day course which explores both what and how to incorporate a variety of assessment methods into evaluation of learners’ skills. Courses: The How to Teach Communication course focuses on key components of effective experiential communication skills training sessions using role play, video, small groups and simulated patients and feedback to enhance learners’ communication skills. The Curriculum Development in Communication Teaching courses guides participants through the development of communication curriculum to meet their institutional needs. 3. Networking and sharing your expertise with your communication teaching colleagues We encourage all communication teachers to contribute to current tEACH resources, in particular teaching and assessment tools and curricula, as a way to share their experiences and expertise with colleagues around the world. Please visit our webpages to see how to submit resourceshttp://www.each.eu/teaching/submit-resourceinformation/. Our newest focus is to help communication teachers to network with each other within their own countries and disciplines and a new tEACH subgroup has recently formed to facilitate this process. We will communicate more about this through our website, newsletters and these pages in the near future.
Bydgoszcz April 2015 tEACH members have facilitated 5 different train the trainer workshops for communication teachers and will be key facilitators during a Poland wide symposium on communication in healthcare this autumn. The Poland tEACH network has found the wide variety of tEACH resources including consultation with tEACH members extremely helpful in this important effort. tEACH is open to assisting with similar efforts in other countries in future.
Project highlight: tEACH Poland One aim of tEACH is to help communication teachers within individual countries, disciplines or even institutions to develop and enhance approaches to communication teaching and assessment
Marcy Rosenbaum Chair
Cadja Bachmann Co-Chair