Journal of Hospital & Medical Management

Virtual Teams in Academic Medicine in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era

Historically, teamwork has been the cornerstone of academic medicine’s “tripartite” mission of clinical service, teaching and training, and research and scholarship. With tectonic changes in healthcare with concomitant socio-cultural-economic, environmental, and generational influences; demographic shifts; dearth of workforce; burgeoning data; and technological advances; several tools (group support systems, team websites, e-mail, instant messaging, and videoconferencing) have advanced the concept and practice of teamwork via virtual team constructs. The challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have escalated the utility of virtual teams in Academic Medical Institutions (AMIs), which are likely to play a dominant role in their repertoire in the foreseeable future. This treatise critically examines the evolution of virtual teams, expounds on their advantages and disadvantages, and posits a paradigm shift in teamwork toward provision of continued excellence in clinical care, discovery, innovation and developing the next generation of clinicians, educators, scholars and researchers.

Author(s): Anish Bhardwaj

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