Preparing the Leaders of Tomorrow: Learnings from a Two-Year Community of Practice in Fragility Fractures

ABSTRACT

To facilitate the development of leadership competencies in a multidisciplinary group of 18 emerging bone experts from 6 European Countries and Brazil, to face future scenarios in the evolving field of fragility fractures, and to support secondary fracture prevention and improve patient outcomes. Changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic have further highlighted this need. A 2.5-year community of practice (CoP) programme was established with two senior bone experts acting as mentors. The content was adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The education impact of the programme was assessed using an ethics-approved mixed-method design consisting of multiple sources of qualitative and quantitative data collected longitudinally. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively. Qualitative data underwent a thematic analysis. After participating in the programme, participants reported increased interprofessional collaboration and communication skills, better understanding of health economics and negotiation, application of adult learning principles to their work setting, development of competencies to critically appraise guidelines, enhanced abilities to facilitate behaviour change in others, and improved confidence leading their team through crisis situations. Although time was required for some physicians to get accustomed to the CoP concept and develop trust with other members, it was described as a beneficial real-world learning experience. An educational real-world CoP programme was effective in enhancing leadership competencies among future leaders in the bone field to improve care of fragility fracture patients. The results presented could guide the development of other CoPs in fragility fracture care as leadership competencies are increasingly required in that field.

KEYWORDS:

• Community of practice
• leadership
• fragility fracture
• collaboration
• clinical teams
• programme evaluation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by Michelle Mackechnie (UCB) who initiated the program, Monica Augustyniak (researcher), who supported data collection, analysis and other aspects of the research, Heather Pengelley (medical writer) who collaborated on the development of educational content, as well as Olivier Jacob (project manager, AXDEV Group) who supported planning, communications and other organisational aspects of the project. The authors would also like to thank all the physician participants who took part in this community of practice.

Disclosure Statement

Ms. Murray is CEO and Founder of AXDEV Group Inc., AXDEV Global Inc. and AXDEV Europe GmbH, and serves on the Board of JECME. Prof. Langdahl has received research grants from Amgen and Novo Nordisk, is serving on advisory boards for UCB, Amgen and Gedeon-Richter, and has received honoraria for lectures from Amgen, UCB, and Eli Lilly. Dr. Casado has received consulting fees or speaker remuneration from Eli Lilly, Amgen, UCB, Rubió, Theramex, Gebro, Italfármaco, Gedeon-Richter, STADA, Bayer and GP-Pharma. Dr. Brooks, Dr. Libanati and Dr. Di Lecce are employees of UCB. Mr. Lazure is an employee of AXDEV Group Inc.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21614083.2022.2142405

Additional information

Funding

This initiative was financially supported by education research funds from UCB Biopharma SPRL.