Enhancing virtual environment-based surgical teamwork training with non-verbal communication

Virtual reality simulations for training surgical skills are increasingly used in medical education and have been shown to improve patient outcome. While advances in hardware and simulation techniques have resulted in many commercial applications for training technical skills, most of these simulators are extremely expensive and do not consider non-technical skills like teamwork and communication. This is a major drawback since recent research suggests that a large percentage of mistakes in clinical settings are due to communication problems. In addition, training teamwork can also improve the efficiency of a surgical team and as such reduce costs and workload. We present an inexpensive camera-based system for capturing aspects of non-verbal communication of users participating in virtual environment-based teamwork simulations. This data can be used for the enhancement of virtual-environment-based simulations to increase the realism and effectiveness of team communication

Improving Communication in a Virtual Team: A Quality Improvement Project

Problem: Data analysis based on two surveys revealed team communication, interdependence, technology interfaces, and integration as the quality gaps in the Virtual Surveillance Team. When compared with traditional in-person teams, a virtual working team faces different types of communication challenges. Context: The virtual surveillance team in the regional quality department at Oakland monitors both Advance Alert Monitor (AAM), a statistical model developed by the Kaiser Permanente (KP) Division of Research (DOR) that is used to predict an individual’s likelihood of deterioration, and eHospital care gaps for Kaiser Foundation Hospitals in Northern California (KFH, NCAL). The latest evaluation from DOR of the AAM intervention in the pilot site from August 2016-February 2017 showed mean 35.5 hour reduction in hospital length of stay (LOS), and mean 19.1 hour reduction in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) LOS (Kaiser Permanente, 2017). As a result of the AAM implementation, the KP NCAL region planned to implement AAM intervention in all 21 facilities of KFH. To achieve this goal, the virtual surveillance team which includes the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) student has expanded rapidly. Communication failures have been frequently attributed to harmful events in healthcare for nearly two decades (Clarke, 2016). For this reason, better communication strategies, knowledge sharing among the team members, and collaborative technologies are critical for the CNL student’s team, where patient safety is the primary goal. Interventions: The quality improvement project aims at two interventions with the purpose of streamlining the workflow, and improving communication among the team. One intervention is to create a SharePoint team communication platform. A second is to develop an online training module of the SharePoint site for the team. Measures: The outcome measures are to improve the percentage of interdependence responses, and the percentage of integration of technology used to support the work of the virtual team. The outcome measures are analyzed through pre, intermediate, and post implementation surveys. Results: Trust and collaboration among team members increased from 58% to 72%. Integration of information and technology used to support the work of the team increased from 47% to 60%. With the implementation of SharePoint communication platform an increase in staff productivity is expected, due to decrease in time spent at the start of the shift to 15 mins per team member. The cost avoidance accrued through increase in staff productivity is estimated to be $21,040. The long term cost savings attributable to this project through enhanced communication and with AAM implementation is an estimated 4.5 hour mean reduction in hospital length of stay and a 0.9 mean hour reduction in ICU length of stay. This would generate an annual cost savings of$14,160 per facility in 2018 with an estimated annual savings of $142,000 for the healthcare organization. The team effectiveness, and the ease of use of technology is expected to improve once the SharePoint site has been implemented. Conclusions: The implications for practice are pending based on feedback from team members after using the site. Enhanced team communication with this project implementation is predicted to improve quality outcomes and increase cost savings

Global virtual teams’ (GVTs) performance: online training and development, organizational commitment, and motivation

The global virtual teams (GVTs) comprise of team members who are geographically dispersed, culturally varied, and mainly depends on information and communication technologies (ICT) to communicate with each other's. In spite of technological leverages, the GVTs facing many challenges that affect their performance. Hence, the online training and development is very important for GVTs to perform. The main goal of online training and development is to improve the skills and behaviors of the GVTs, which leads to increase the performance of the team. A systematic literature review was conducted to answer two research questions. The first research question is to investigate the relationship between online training and development and global virtual teams' performance. The second research question is to find out the existing frame works involving online training and development in GVTs. Then, the related frameworks are analyzed to highlight the gaps and limitations for each of them. The findings indicated that there is a positive relationship between online training and development and global virtual teams' performance. The existing frameworks are overlapped in some variables such as online training and global virtual teams' performance. However, the existing frameworks are still not sufficient to measure the performance of GVTs. A Performance Measurement Framework for GVTs was proposed to assist the project manager on measuring the global virtual teams' performance involving the online training and development, organizational commitment, and motivation based on defined key performance indicators (KPIs)

Ways that Team Leaders of Virtual Teams Cultivate Team Learning

Corporations have become increasingly global over the past number of years. The rapid development and usage of communication technology has allowed global corporations to more readily form virtual teams to take advantage of the skills of its global workforce. Having skilled workers on teams helps to make them more productive. Productive teams tend to reach their objectives and ultimately drive the success of corporations. Team learning has long been linked with a team’s ability to reach its objectives. The team leader is seen as a key to enabling learning for the team. This qualitative study of 13 virtual teams sought to find ways that the leaders of these virtual teams cultivated team learning in the IT department of a leading global financial services firm. The study was especially focused on applications development project teams that were geographically and temporally dispersed and had an off-shore component as team members. Using the Dechant, Marsick, and Kasl (1993) model of team learning as a foundation, the researcher conducted critical incident interviews with the leaders of the virtual teams followed by administering the Dechant and Marsick (1993) Team Learning Survey to the team members. The study yielded insights that could be valuable to organizations that employ virtual team leaders as well as human resource development professionals who create training programs to enhance the skills of this group. Among the most prevalent skills identified included group facilitation, meeting management, process documentation, artifact creation, practicing learning agility, and soliciting input. The virtual team leader exhibited learning leadership by building relationships within the team and with other constituents; utilizing appropriate technology to enable learning; and conducting productive reflection sessions with the team to evaluate the team’s actions. Where team leaders needed to improve their efforts was around the monitoring and measuring of their learning efforts in order to gauge their full effectiveness

Application of the Methodology of Communication Skills Training for Employees of Hotel Companies, Based on Immersion into the Virtual World

This paper describes a research study of communication skills training for future hotel workers in an immersive environment. The research team developed a model of the hotel reception in a virtual environment, and proposed a methodology for three-phase training. The research involved 56 testers who provided detailed feedback. To improve the communication skills of the participants, it is necessary to repeat the simulations and analyze the individual aspects of the communication in depth

A Partnership Approach to Multi-Campus Library Services

With more than 50,000 students taking courses at twelve campus locations as well as online, the University of Central Florida (UCF) is one of the ten largest universities in the United States, based on enrollment. This multi-campus university system uses strategic integration of physical and virtual assets to deliver regional library services. Partnership agreements govern operations and service issues across all library functions, including collection development, cataloging, and interlibrary loan. In this environment, an organizational culture that fosters team building, flexibility, training, and all varieties of communication, and one that includes a strategic integration of new technology to improve channels of communication and collaboration opportunities is vital

PELAKSANAAN PROGRAM TEAM BUILDING DALAM KEGIATAN VIRTUAL OUTBOUND TRAINING YANG DISELENGGARAKAN OLEH PT TRUSTCO

Penelitian kualitatif deskriptif ini bertujuan untuk untuk mendeskripsikan tahapan program team building pada kegiatan Virtual Outbound Training mulai dari tahapan perencanaan, pelaksanaan, dan evaluasi kegiatan yang di selenggarakan oleh PT Trustco sebagai upaya meningkatkan kerjasama dan komunikasi peserta secara tim atau kelompok. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan wawancara, observasi, dan dokumentasi. Sumber data dalam penelitian adalah marketing, fasilitator, dan peserta program team building. Analisis data yang digunakan yaitu dengan pengolahan data mentah, pengelompokan data, perbandingan teori, dengan temuan lapangan penyajian data sampai penarikan kesimpulan. Hasil penelitian bahwa perencanaan program team building melaui virtual outbound training yang dilakukan PT Trustco melibatkan marketing, fasilitator, operator zoom, dan learning development dari perusahaan yang menjadi klien. Proses identifikasi dilakukan dengan memberikan from identifikasi kepada klien, proses perencanaan program membutuhkan waktu 1 – 2 bulan. Pelaksanaan program team building melaui virtual outbound training yang berdurasi 3 – 4 jam melalui media zoom meeting tak lepas dari kendala yang sering terjadi pada saat pelatihan yaitu sinyal atau internet. Program pelatihan ini menggunakan metode experiental learning yaitu belajar dari pengalaman melalui aktivitas atau simulasi dari program team building melaui virtual outbound training. Evaluasi program team building melaui virtual outbound training dilakukan dengan cara melihat reaksi secara langsung dari peserta yaitu melalui kolom chat, dan melalui google from. Program team building melaui virtual outbound training memang diperuntukkan untuk penyegaran susana bekerja secara online walaupun terbatas dalam tatap muka secara langsung. Oleh sebab itu, fasilitator serta master games agar bisa meningkatkan komunikasi dengan baik, dan memahami masalah terkait media yang digunakan, dan PT Trustco harus bisa mengembangkan dan mempertahankan konsep pelatihan team building melaui virtual outbound training ini. This descriptive qualitative research aims to describe the stages of team building programs in virtual outbound training activities starting from the planning, implementation and evaluation stages of activities organized by PT Trustco as an effort to increase cooperation and communication of participants in teams or groups. Data collection techniques using interviews, observation, and documentation. The data source in the study is marketing, facilitator, and team building program participants. Data analysis used is by processing raw data grouping data comparison of theory with field findings presentation of data to drawing conclusions. The results that planning the team building program through virtual outbound training conducted by PT Trustco involved marketing, facilitators, zoom operators, and learning development of companies that are clients. The identification process is done by giving from identification to clients, the program planning process takes 1-2 months. The implementation of the Team Building program through virtual outbound training that lasts 3-4 hours through the media zoom meeting can not be separated from the obstacles that often occur during training, namely signals or the internet. This training program uses the Experiental Learning method, which is learning from experience through activities or simulations of team building programs through virtual outbound training. Evaluation of Team Building programs through virtual outbound training is done by looking at the reaction directly from the participants, namely through the chat column, and through Google from. Team Building Program through Virtual Outbound Training is intended to refresh Susana to work online even though it is limited in face to face. Therefore, the facilitator and master games in order to improve communication well, and understand the problems related to the media used, and PT Trustco must be able to develop and maintain the concept of team building training through this virtual outbound training

Incorporating Virtually Immersive Environments as a Collaborative Medium for Virtual Teaming

Virtually immersive environments incorporate the use of various computer modelling and simulation techniques enabling geographically dispersed virtual project teams to interact within an artificially projected three-dimensional space online. This study focused on adoption of virtually immersive technologies as a collaborative media to support virtual teaming of both graduate and undergraduate-level project management students. The data and information from this study has implications for educators using virtually immersive environments in the classroom. In this study, we specifically evaluated two key components in this paper: 1) students' level of trust and; 2) students' willingness to use the technology, along with their belief about the virtual environment's ability to extend and improve knowledge sharing in their team work environment. We learned that while students did find the environment a positive add on for working collaboratively, there were students who were neither more nor less likely to use the technology for future collaborative ventures. Most of the students who were not very positive about the environment were “fence sitters” likely indicating needs related to additional training to improve communication skills. Finally, based on the full study results we have provided basic recommendations designed to support team trust building in the system along with interpersonal trust building to facilitate knowledge transfer and better strategic us of the technology

VIRTUAL AND COLLOCATED PROJECT TEAMS IMPACT ON PRODUCTIVITY IN MEDICAL DEVICE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Two project management environments, virtual and collocated project teams, were researched and analyzed in this dissertation to determine the impact in productivity in medical device research and development. The relationship between virtual and collocated project teams and project management levers was also explored in this dissertation using four case studies. This case study methodology was performed based on the lack of past research to explore virtual and collocated project teams in four research and development medical device environments. The following project management levers were integrated into the research: environment (virtual and collocated project teams), leadership, meetings, team maturity (knowledge and experience/expertise), continuous process improvement, and information communication technology processes. The research contributes to medical device research and development organizations that utilize virtual and collocated project teams and suggests best practices to improve productivity. This also provides project team members potential ideas into improved productivity. Both project team environments were viewed as effectively achieving productivity. The results of the four case studies indicated no significant differences between virtual and collocated project teams productivity. Minor differences were found across the project management levers in the case studies. The following major recommendations are made for improving productivity in future virtual and collocated project team environments: medical device research and development organizations should give additional attention to more up-front planning to determine risks, resources, continued process improvement, information communication technology, and leadership needed to complete the project; leadership and project management training should be provided, they should continue to seek a balance in project team resources and the level of project team maturity (knowledge and experience/expertise); meetings need to be performed efficiently and have an agenda and information communication technology tools need to be fully utilized and integrated across medical device research and development project teams

Effectively Managing a Virtual Workforce

In today\u27s fast paced, ever changing organizational environment, there is an elevated need for versatility and productivity in virtually every situation. With advanced technology, fluctuating customer needs, and volatile industry trends, an organization can find itself left behind the competition if it does not work smarter, faster, and leaner than others in the marketplace. In order to keep up with these demands, many organizations have abandoned the concept of traditional, on-site, office environments for those of virtual configuration, as they allow companies to operate with lower overhead costs, capitalize on geographically dispersed talent and provide flexibility in the services they offer. The purpose of this project was to identify and evaluate a variety of leadership skills and techniques related to managing in a virtual environment in order to develop a training program that would assist managers and supervisors improve the effectiveness of their virtual teams and ultimately increase team performance, which positively impacts business results. Four fundamental categories of performance were explored: (1) building trust, (2) incorporating effective communication, (3) navigating cultural diversity, and (4) managing performance and accountability