Collaborative conversations during the time of COVID‐19: Building a “meta”‐learning community

Ferguson, Lisa Rentes Victor C.; McCarthy, Lauren Vinson Alexandra H.

Problem Approach Outcomes Next Steps COVID‐19 created new research, clinical, educational, and personal challenges, while simultaneously separating work teams who were under work‐from‐home restrictions. Addressing these challenges required new forms of collaborative groups.To support the department community and the rapid sharing of new research, educational, clinical, and personal efforts, a Core Team from the Department of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan developed a meeting series called the COVID Conversations. This Experience Report shares the organizational structure of the COVID Conversations, proposes a comparison to traditional Learning Communities, and reports the results of a questionnaire that gathered details about department members' COVID‐related activities.We identify and describe salient similarities and differences between the COVID Conversations and the characteristics of Learning Communities. We also developed and piloted a taxonomy for characterizing LHS research projects that may be further developed for use in Learning Community planning, in conjunction with other maturity grids and ontologies. We propose the term “Meta‐Learning Community” to describe the structure and function of the COVID Conversations.In academic medicine, remote work, telemedicine, and virtual learning may be here to stay. The COVID Conversations constitute a distinct and innovative form of collaborative work in which separate teams addressing distinct goals, yet sharing a common passion to tackle the issues brought by the pandemic, are able to share experiences and learn from one other. The challenges of COVID‐19 have made evident the need for multiple forms of organizing teamwork, and our study contributes the notion of a “Meta”‐Learning Community as a new form of collaborative work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Learning Health Systems is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)