Applying learning from self-directed work teams in business to curriculum development for interdisciplinary geriatric teams

Business settings, which increasingly promote the value of teamwork and self-directed work teams (SDWTs), offer a popular model for team development training. SDWTs are formal, permanent organizational structures or units empowered to manage themselves and the work they do. SDWTs in business settings have many of the same features as, face similar issues and problems to, and have worked out solutions to many issues that also apply to interdisciplinary health care teams (IHTs). The literature on SDWTs in business settings has addressed team involvement in choosing team leadership, training team leaders, running team meetings, selecting new team members, disciplining team members, peer review by the team, and team compensation. Materials from organizational literature have been used to promote SDWTs in health settings. However application of SDWT curriculum to IHTs has not been examined. This paper compares the curriculum used by SDWTs in business settings with its potential application to interdisciplinary teams in, geriatrics. It addresses areas where application, may be valuable and others that are potentially problematic. It offers suggestions for using SDWT concepts to train for practice on IHTs and suggests IHT concepts that could be applied to SDWT curriculum when used in geriatric health care settings.