Collaboration has played an instrumental role in many historical accomplishments.  It is just as relevant in today’s world when a number of unique insights are achieved through the power of a team.  These insights are then used to formulate a solution to a complex problem. Health care is just one of many industries that can best be served when individual experts work together in order to provide a positive outcome. While working in teams is nothing new to most physicians, broad–based interdisciplinary teams should be considered a “next step” in American health care.  That is the po

Today's health care students and prospective students are much more attuned to social media and the mobile communication environment than previous generations. That's an important fact to consider when you see some of the forecasts in a new report titled, Global Mobile Health Market Report 2010-2015. This report was released yesterday at the mHealth Summit in Washington, DC. The cost of the report is €1890, but there is an abstract that summarizes some of the reports more interesting details. Access to good health care is a universal human need, but with almost 7 billion people in the world

The Nov-Dec 2010 issue of Family Medicine is focusing exclusively on rural health. The issue has a number of original articles, reviews and reports that provide a rich context for understanding rural health today. In the introduction to the issue, Andrea L. Wendling, MD, writes: As family medicine educators, we should be proud of what we’ve done to advance the care of rural America; we should also be striving for ways to continue to meet this need with high-quality, well-trained primary care physicians. The dilemma of creating a physician workforce that meets the needs of this country is we

Yesterday's post on this site stressed the importance of listening and observation for health care professionals. Another foundational need for health care careers is critical thinking skills. Critical thinking helps formulate conclusions and solutions that are gained through observation and listening. Wikipedia quotes these as key critical thinking abilities: Recognize problems, in order to find workable means for meeting those problems Understand the importance of prioritization and order of precedence in problem solving Gather and marshal pertinent (relevant) information Recognize uns