**3.5 Consensus building sessions**

In line with findings showing that time and space are key elements for creating interdisciplinary research collaborations [11], the team (5 to 9 members) met in-person once per month for 1–2 hours for 8 months at different locations. These meetings included a scientific meeting and a consensus meeting, where we brought together leaders from academic and health-systems backgrounds to discuss a collaboration initiative for advancing interdisciplinary efforts to respond to health care challenges, including the current opioid epidemic. Each meeting was structured to give members the opportunity to communicate their disciplinary perspectives and experience, highlight common ground, and create shared language and knowledge. Given research suggesting that off-campus meetings, i.e., off-sites, were helpful in the implementation phase to minimize distractions while assessing study progress [5], we held several in-person meetings and activities in an off-campus location. This approach provided information and context regarding individual and team problem solving.

We conducted additional analysis of transcripts from an interdisciplinary symposium, referred to as the health systems science meeting. This allowed us to integrate organization and implementation science and understand how these sciences can form a foundation for an institutional response to the opioid epidemic. The goal was to focus on areas shown by research to be associated with team science, identify barriers and facilitators, and use learnings to develop team interdisciplinarity.

We also created a database using reports written retrospectively by team members working together on a pilot study for assessing the process of becoming interdisciplinary when responding to ED actions for addressing the opioid epidemic. This qualitative analysis outlines the experiences and observations the team members had in participating in a series of activities that progressed from unstructured to structured activities.

The goals of assessing the team building process were to: 1) qualify the collaboration between social work, nursing and medicine (for example, we assessed team members' perception of the process of moving toward a interdisciplinary approach. We relied on semi-structured interviews to examine perceived change in exchanging disciplinary knowledge and contributing toward the research goals), and 2) record group activities that successfully contributed and those that did not contribute to team progress (we compared direct observation reports of team building activities such as team bowling and analysis of semi-structured interview data).

### **3.6 Analytical strategy**

To study team processes, two Ph.D.-level researchers and a doctoral student observed and documented team interactions. These included in-person meetings and activities, phone conversations, and e-mail exchanges. All interviews and focus groups were recorded and professionally transcribed. Data was kept strictly confidential based on the original (2016) and revised human protection protocol (IRB # RC010001). Two doctoral level and one graduate level raters analyzed transcripts with InVivo software using template analysis, a set of techniques for thematically organizing and analyzing textual data via thematic codes that are defined a priori as critical to study questions and inductively through the coding process. The research team identified the most common and prominently expressed codes and themes that emerged from the interviews. When these codes and themes were not clear, raters discussed them and reached consensus on the best description. Themes were validated with outside social work and medicine researchers.

#### **3.7 Results**

Our findings emphasize the contributions of interdisciplinary teams toward ED response to the opioid epidemic, after exposure to processes that facilitate

#### *Building Interdisciplinary Teams in Emergency Care to Respond to National Emergencies… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99206*

and promote the formation and effectiveness of a more integrated interdisciplinary team. The process of team building developed in this study was engaging and fostered professional relationships in a setting outside of work. Participants reported that the three iterative team-building activities—dinner, team bowling, and escape rooms—were valuable to team building in that they were critical to the team's connection and knowledge-building experiences. Dinner introduced participants to each other, bowling helped them become more acquainted, and the escape rooms taught them problem solving and interdependence. Participants were motivated to meet new team members and become more familiar with those they already knew. Through these encounters, teammates were able to discuss with each other the details of their projects related to the opioid crisis and opportunities for collaboration that will foster improved care practices for opioid use disorders.

Data from focus groups, team building activities, and scientific presentation provided two perspectives on the response to the opioid epidemic problem. The focus group provided a point of view that is more implementation-based, while the Health Systems Science and interdisciplinary symposium perspective provided a multi-theoretical explanation of how systems can be implemented at different organizational levels. Throughout the transcripts, six overarching themes emerged that provide insight on the challenges practitioners in the ED and organizations face, while dealing with the opioid epidemic (see **Figure 2**). These themes were: need for interdisciplinary understanding of substance abuse and mental health; interdisciplinary approaches to fight the opioid epidemic; prescribing opioids and collaboration; the role of interdisciplinary team composition and team effectiveness; the role of professional identity to contribute to interdisciplinary research; and building effective organizational relationships.

**Figure 2.** *Interrelated themes.*
