A Taste of Agile to Create Change in Medical Education

Abstract

Change is difficult. It is frequently stated that it takes an average of 17 years for research evidence to reach clinical practice. Over the past decade, an interdisciplinary team of scientists at Indiana University developed agile methods to design, implement, and diffuse evidence-based behavioral and social science interventions. Such methods incorporate rapid, iterative, and adaptive problem-solving techniques that are based on insights from agile science. Agile science integrates findings from behavioral economics, complexity science, and network science to understand, predict, and nudge the behavior of both an individual human and that of a social organization of humans such as a healthcare delivery system or medical school. While earning a graduate certificate in Innovation and Implementation Science, I became curious about the use of agile science in education, in general, and medical education and interprofessional education, in particular. A literature search indicated that little of agile science has found its way into traditional education, medical education or interprofessional education. In working with classmates also engaged in educating the next generation of health care providers, we believe this approach holds great promise, is completely feasible for medical education and is transferable to any institution. A Taste of Agile provides an introduction to developing an agile mindset and will model and dive into two agile tools. Participants will get an overview of agile science and participate in an Innovation Forum, an agile tool used for idea generation and problem solving, to help solve a problem specific to staff. Participants will also use a reflection tool to generate timely, actionable, nonjudgmental feedback. In addition to learning how to use these tools, participants will get tips on how to apply these tools back at their jobs, and other resources to learn agile change that can applied in medical education and health care.