Integrating Medicine, Purpose, and Action through Collaborative Thinking Leadership Track (IMPACT)

The IMPACT Leadership Track is a certificate training program for UConn GME residents and fellows that provides evidence-based frameworks for learners to develop skills that will enhance their future ability to engage career pathways as healthcare leaders. The IMPACT curriculum emphasizes personal growth through team assignments and group discussions focused on self-reflection, leadership skill development, and data-driven examination of the complexities of health care leadership from the perspectives of patients, health care providers, and health systems.

The IMPACT leadership track is a multi-specialty learning community. Current and past participants include UConn Graduate Medical Education residents and fellows in anesthesiology, cardiothoracic surgery, dermatology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, pediatrics, and psychiatry.  Learners participate in an integrated 2-year curriculum (residents) or 1-year training program (fellows) that develops awareness, understanding, and application of management and leadership skills in the context of patient care.

The IMPACT curriculum is developed through 2-hour monthly seminars (September – May) that are interactive and led by faculty and trainees. Seminar topics explore leadership in rapidly evolving and complex health systems in the United States and in low-income and middle-income settings internationally. Sources for learning include journal articles, leadership books, webinars, psychometric tools, quality improvement projects, as well as individual coaching, mentoring, and feedback with the course director and faculty.

IMPACT seminar topics and faculty are updated annually within the context of a learning framework focused on leadership insight, deliberation, skill development, and action. Longitudinal connection between current and past didactic programs is supported by a curriculum library (Husky Dashboard). Year 1 learners (residents) focus on understanding complex health system from the perspective of healthcare leadership challenges and leadership competencies. Year 2 learners (residents and fellows) perform advanced examination of leadership skills and they apply and refine these skills through team initiatives and mentored scholarship.