SOHHA's 2026 Team-Based Clinical Care as a Healthcare System-Based Acupuncturist
Cultural Competencies, KSAs, Challenges & Success Stories; Metrics & Data Collection
Live Zoom Presentation
Outline of this event article
Overview and How to Attend
Why we chose to develop this resource on team care skills and identifying KSAs for this work. The challenge. The solution.
Team Care Skills Resource: Goals and Progress. This resource is currently managed, updated, revised, and hosted by the Society of Hospital and Healthcare System-Based Acupuncturists (SOHHA)’s Employment Practices Workgroup
Related resources and how to connect to them
Presentation title slide, “Team-based Clinical Care Work as a Healthcare System Acupuncturist (LAc). Cultural and Professional Competencies, Challenges and Success Stories.” This event supports learning and practicing knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) in team care skills. Slide created with Canva. Illustration of clinicians gathered at a table created with help of Canva AI in July 2026.
Overview and How to Attend
Please join us for our 2026 presentation, followed by a community discussion or Q&A on the team care model. Our Employment Practices Workgroup presented some of this information as a workshop at the 2023 Society for Acupuncture Research (SAR) conference.
We have updated this resource and are happy to share this 2026 version with you this September. Please feel free to chime in on how the team care model is working or not working for you at your workplace. You can start the conversation asynchronously before the event in our community learning platform by commenting on the internal event page. See the button below for the link to that event discussion page.
And attend the live session to engage in discussion with the speakers and fellow attendees!
Your feedback, both in the community learning platform (asynchronously) and in the live event's discussion session (synchronously), helps us to improve this resource. If you'd like to work more directly on improving this resource or creating new resources, please join our Employment Practices Workgroup. To get started as a volunteer, join the learning platform and message (using the platform) our current board members.
Why develop a resource specifically about the Team-based Care Model and its related skill set?
last updated 07.10.2026
“Team care skills” is a resource hosted by SOHHA’s Employment Practices Workgroup. Workgroup volunteers Megan and Ryan first identified the need to create a public presentation on team-care skills for the healthcare system-based acupuncturist in 2022 as part of the Employment Practices Workgroup under the Hospital Handbook Project for Acupuncturists (HHP)®, a nonprofit program. The first public presentation of our team-based care resource was as a workshop at the Society for Acupuncture Research conference in May 2023.
The team-based clinical care model is popular in U.S. healthcare. Done well, it supports a patient-centered care model, decreases clinician burnout (improves resilience), decreases adverse event rates (safety), and supports the High-Reliability Organization (HRO) model of safety in healthcare.
Acupuncturists can learn team care skills and be valuable members of the clinical team.
The challenge: Successful team care is challenging for everyone, not just clinicians.
Why is learning and honing team care skills a challenge?
Working as part of a clinical care team is a learned skill set.
Team care skills are not commonly taught in graduate healthcare programs.
Why should a healthcare system-based acupuncturist learn and practice team care skills?
Learning to work as part of a provider team at least part of the time is an essential patient care skill for clinicians in the U.S. healthcare system.
Working as a member of an interdisciplinary patient care team (LAc + psychologists + more allied health + physicians + nurses and more) within a medium to the large healthcare system is an even more complex skill set.
This skill set can be difficult to learn because examples of successful interdisciplinary team care are challenging to find.
Acupuncturists (LAcs) can learn team care skills and be valuable members of a clinical team.
Our Team Care Skills Resource: Goals and Progress
This resource is hosted by SOHHA’s Employment Practices Workgroup. If you are interested in joining the workgroup, attend this event and send a message to the speakers about your interest in volunteering.
Goals:
Identify the essential elements of the "team care" model and related skill set
Identify current resources that may teach these skills
Identify examples of acupuncturists working successfully in team care models
Create space to share their success stories with the community
Develop community resources to meet what the workgroup identifies as current learning & resource needs for LAcs working in healthcare settings to learn these skills.
Communicate about team-care skill-building resources.
Progress:
This resource was presented as a workshop at the Society for Acupuncture Research (SAR) conference in 2023.
Asynchronous access to Team Care Skills articles, videos, and other materials are available on SOHHA’s learning platform since 2023.
Some resources have been available publicly for no cost on our website and on our YouTube channel. In the past, this included a downloadable copy of our slide deck from our first presentation.
New, 2026 updated presentation and community discussion event scheduled for September 2026. Live, zoom presentation with community discussion and Q & A.
Team-based Clinical Care Work as a Healthcare System LAc. Cultural Competencies, KSAs, Challenges & Success Stories; Metrics & Data Collection
Presenters: Megan Kingsley Gale, MSAOM, Dipl. OM (NCCAOM®), LAc, LMT and Ryan Davenport, DACM, MSAOM, Dipl. OM (NCCAOM®), LAc, MA
Description:
The team-based clinical care model is popular in U.S. healthcare. However, successful team care is challenging. Team care skills are not commonly taught in graduate healthcare programs. Learning to work as part of a provider team at least part of the time is an essential patient care skill for clinicians in the U.S. healthcare system. It is common for acupuncturists in private practice to work alone. Working as part of a clinical care team is a learned skill set. Working as a member of an interdisciplinary patient care team (LAc + allied health + physicians + nurses et al) within a medium to large healthcare system is a more complex skill set. This skill set is difficult to learn because examples of successful interdisciplinary team care are challenging to find. Acupuncturists (LAcs) can learn team care skills.
This live Zoom event will introduce acupuncturists to several models of “team-based care” from at least two different healthcare systems. Presenters will teach basic team care communication skills to improve attendees’ ability to communicate concisely, whether or not they work in a healthcare system. This event will highlight best practices, common challenges (to creating and sustaining successful team care models), and effective ways to overcome them. We will discuss the literature on the qualities of effective teams both within and outside healthcare systems. We will provide case examples to elucidate how to apply these suggestions and involve attendees in sharing their experiences. We review the issue of best-fit metrics and data collection in a team care model. Challenges may include organizational culture, reimbursement models, program funding, safety & transparency models (the HRO model), access to team care training, protected team communication time, schedules, personnel, and choice of metrics/data collection. If there is time, presenters may use some specific scenarios in an interactive workshop part of the community discussion portion of the event. The overall goal of the event is for attendees to take away practical knowledge and application steps to flourish in their respective environments.
Related Resources
(A) Our resources from SOHHA’s Safety Practices Workgroup. Safety Practices Workgroup resources include:
Live Zoom presentations CEUs available (synchronous resources), offered several times per year.
Over 100 articles in Safety-topic-focused groups are available to everyone subscribed to our learning platform.
Presentation recordings available in the Issues in Hospital-Based Practice Webinar Series, available at the Tier 2 level learning platform subscription.
(B) Some Team Care Skills videos that are available on YouTube that we have recommended because they support examples and learning about some of the concepts presented in this event. These are uploaded to our YouTube Channel, this playlist (added 5.14.2023):
Daily Huddles, an example
SBAR, effective communication example
SBAR, ineffective communication example
Psychological Safety in Healthcare, an essential aspect of a healthy team
After Action Review (AAR), quick overview from the WHO.
More detailed info about AARs and related processes are available in our learning platform for Tier 2 subscribers. AAR resource last updated June 2026.
AHRQ Team STEPPS model
Joy in Work, how it affects healthcare quality, an IHI Don Berwick clip