Interprofessional education and the new educator: Getting started with planning and implementation

Providing interprofessional education for pre and post-registration nurses

During an episode of care, a patient may be attended by a variety of healthcare professionals. In addition, healthcare service provision can be complex, and patients may feel that elements of their care have been missed or delayed due to inadequate collaboration and communication between the staff involved. Interprofessional education (IPE) involves students from two or more professions learning about each other's roles and skills. Increasing calls for integrated and joined-up healthcare services mean that staff will be increasingly required to collaborate with colleagues, with the aim of providing joined-up care. This article explains the background to IPE, how it can be implemented in practice and the barriers that nurses should consider to ensure effective implementation.

Characteristics of High-Performing Interprofessional Health Care Teams Involving Student Pharmacists

Objective. To identify key themes of interprofessional models of care that offer experiential education opportunities for pharmacy learners. Methods. Six pharmacists from four Area Health Education Centers in North Carolina participated in individual, 60-minute interviews. Using two pre-established frameworks, the data were analyzed qualitatively by two members of the research team to identify the characteristics of interdisciplinary care teams. Results. At the level of the organization or health care system, the theme of appropriate resources and procedures emerged. At the level of the team, the themes of appropriate resources and procedures, communication, appropriate skill mix, climate, quality and outcomes of care, and respecting and understanding roles emerged. At the level of the individual, the themes of communication, respecting and understanding roles, and individual characteristics emerged. Three themes identified in a previous study failed to emerge in the interviews: leadership and management; personal rewards, training and development; and clarity of vision. Conclusion. Although a growing body of evidence highlights the importance of designing practice models to achieve interdisciplinary care that is patient-centered and effective, capacity to support learners and effectively educate them in the principles and practices of team-based care is limited. This study provides critical insight into characterizations of interprofessional models that integrate pharmacy learners. Further research is needed to better understand the barriers to designing and implementing IPE in experiential settings.

Highlighting a gap in student pharmacist training: Intraprofessional education with pharmacy technicians

INTRODUCTION

The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Accreditation Standards suggest integration and inclusion of interprofessional education in doctor of pharmacy programs. Although not directly mentioned by these Standards, intraprofessional education between student pharmacists and student pharmacy technicians may provide valuable preparation for comradery in practice.

COMMENTARY

Given the prevalence of collaboration between pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in pharmacy practice, lack of intraprofessional education could be a vital gap in current programs. There have been previous calls within academic pharmacy and from key stakeholder groups for greater involvement of the profession in the training and education of pharmacy technicians, yet literature is sparse on successful models. This commentary includes a discussion of why intraprofessional training is vital, a brief commentary on example intraprofessional activities, as well as strategies for collaboration.

IMPLICATIONS

A series of questions with the intention of evoking further conversations and awareness within academic pharmacy completes the commentary.

Interprofessional education through a telehealth team based learning exercise focused on pharmacogenomics

BACKGROUND

Traditional interprofessional educational (IPE) exercises are those where learning exists "about, from, and with" trainees in two or more professions in order to prepare health sciences professionals to work on interprofessional teams. One emerging difficulty with IPE is the paucity of health profession students at single institutions, and the geographic and financial constraints of multi-institutional collaboration.

INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION ACTIVITY

To circumvent these barriers, we developed a multi-institution telehealth team-based learning (TBL) event between medical and pharmacy students on the topic of pharmacogenomics (PGx). Using a validated pre-post survey design, student attitudes and perceptions were measured before and after an educational intervention designed to simulate interprofessional telehealth collaboration. The survey results showed significant improvement across all areas of student attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration. Also, medical student PGx confidence increased substantially during the exercise even though the only PGx instruction they received was from pharmacy students.

DISCUSSION

These data demonstrate that learning exists "about, from, and with" trainees in other professions, even if they do not physically train in the same location. Free tools are available to create virtual interactions between students on different campuses, and telehealth exercises using these tools are a valid way to conduct IPE across different campuses. The instructional experience does not need to be identical for all participants in the IPE event; rather, tailoring the educational experience to each group of students provides opportunities for inter-student teaching.

Facilitators and barriers to students' learning in an obesity prevention graduate program

Childhood obesity is a major public health concern with underpinnings at the individual, family, community and societal levels. The Transdisciplinary Childhood Obesity Prevention Graduate Certificate Program (TOP) is an innovative graduate-level certificate program developed to train professionals to understand and address obesity from multiple perspectives using an interprofessional education (IPE) approach. Currently, there is limited knowledge on what promotes or hinders learning in IPE approaches dealing with obesity prevention. The goal of this report is to address this gap by describing facilitators and barriers to learning in a graduate-level training program. Using a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were collected from 23 professional students, as part of a larger program evaluation project for TOP. Thematic analysis revealed the challenges and strengths of the program that relate specifically to: its interprofessional approach, its structure, and its activities. Interprofessional exchanges were reported to expand students' learning, but adequate interprofessional representation must be maintained, and the complexity of interprofessional collaborations must also be well-coordinated. Standardising the program structure and courses for consistency across professions, and clear communication are critical to program success. Findings add to the existing literature on what promotes effective learning in a professional obesity prevention program using an IPE approach.