Program Coordinator Corner – January 2018
Dawne M. Vowler
Endocrinology & Metabolism Fellowship Coordinator
T32 Training Grant Manager
University of Michigan
dvowler@med.umich.edu
Creating a Back-Up Team
Have you ever been gone on a medical leave of absence or maternity leave? If so, who covered for you? If the answer was, “no one” or “an administrative assistant in our division”, you know this is not the optimal answer.
About three years ago, I was out on a medical LOA in my current role as Endocrinology & Metabolism Fellowship Program Administrator. No one covered my position. I “pre-planned” as much as I could. Honestly, I returned to work earlier than I should have (my own choice) because I felt the pull of getting back to my duties. This is not an optimal professional situation.
Here at the University of Michigan, our Internal Medicine Core Programs and the Medical Subspecialties have a strong group of PCs that work together (16 Coordinators between the core and fellowship programs). We meet regularly and have strong bonds of professional and personal relationships. The IM Residency Program Administrator asked a group of five of us with strong skills in various complimenting areas to come together and form a Back-Up Team that could be activated in the event that a PC would go out on a leave or leave his/her position and the job be left vacant for a period of time. The goal of this group would be to provide coverage and continuity of tasks. We were NOT there to change any current processes or provide judgment on how any particular coordinator did their job.
Our IM Program Administrator was able to communicate, at the Department Level, to obtain buy in from the Department and Division Leadership to provide monetary compensation for us, each time the team is activated.
Concurrently, another task force in our group was working on an electronic Program Coordinator Job Manual, that all of us could use. This job manual is somewhat generic in that it provides basic information on things we all do, not detailed information on what each individual PC does. However, it is somewhat specialized in that it provides specific information for the Department of Internal Medicine, which is different than other areas of the Health System. Note this paragraph, as I will reference it again later.
To get started, we met, as a group, and created a list of annual tasks. We created an email address for all five team members, so we could communicate with each other and programs utilizing our services could communicate their needs to us. We discussed issues involved for team activation, when the time came, and decided the following:
Tasks assigned based on availability, time of year, physical location of offices, and areas of expertise
- Created a process to activate the team which included meeting with the current coordinator (if possible), Program Director, and other management staff to discuss immediate needs
- Team “post meeting” to further delegate additional tasks, after meeting with the divisional group
- Send copy of the assignments to the program, so we and they are all clear about how the team will run
We have activated this team one time, which happened when a Program Coordinator went out for emergent surgery. The timeframe was June 7 – July 17, which covered the division’s graduation party, off boarding, orientation, as well as some regular activities. Of course, this was happening at the same time as our own activities of the same.
Through this first activation, we learned:
- Program Specific Checklist
- We added this checklist as a requirement to our electronic Program Coordinator Job Manual. (Remember when I said I would reference the above paragraph again.) This “at a glance” information that is specific to each program will make stepping in and taking over much easier.
- Assignment of unassigned tasks
- We left the generic tasks that arrived by email unassigned on a “first come; first take” basis among the team. We found everyone was jumping quickly to take these, as we are all pretty organized and eager to help. We decided that it might be better to have a day of the week (since there are five of us) that each of us monitors the generic email issues. Exceptions would be things that are clearly better for a specific person to cover.
Our team felt that a Post Activation Debriefing was important. We sent a short survey, through Qualtrics, to the fellows, PD, PC, and the Division Administrator, to get their feedback on the process. We utilized the feedback for team improvement. We also held a debriefing meeting with our IM Program Administrator, and the PC who had gone out and her PD to review tasks and discuss issues that we encountered during the absence. We decided it would be best to have only one member of our team conduct this debriefing to minimize the impression of judgment. It is very important to our team that this project maintains goodwill throughout the fellowships.
Clearly, every institution is different, so no two organizations would have quite the same execution of this plan, but I think a Back-Up Team can be organized and activated, in some form, in most institutions. I encourage you to advocate for one.
Lastly, our team submitted this project for presentation at both APDIM and ACGME 2018 Annual Meetings. We were accepted to both, so if you are attending either meeting, please feel free to come to the presentation and hear more about this project.