Resource Center

A significant number of patients requiring critical care are now being managed outside of critical care facilities. There is evidence that staff looking after these patients lack the necessary knowledge and skills to care for them safely, and that effective pre-registration education can play a significant role in addressing these shortfalls in nurses' knowledge and skills.

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is a relatively new approach to initiating or managing organizational change that is associated with the 'positiveness' movement in psychology and its offshoot positive organizational scholarship. Rather than dwelling upon problems related to change, AI encourages individuals to adopt a positive, constructive approach to managing change. In recent years, AI has been used to initiate change across a broad range of public and private sector organizations.

BACKGROUND: There has been increasing interest in the active involvement of patients in the education of health professionals. Few have examined the potential role of patient educators in the facilitation of interprofessional education (IPE).

AIM: This qualitative program evaluation examined students' perceptions of their learning in a patient-facilitated IPE event.

Simulated learning activities are increasingly being used in health professions and interprofessional education (IPE). Specifically, IPE programs are frequently adopting role-play simulations as a key learning approach. Despite this widespread adoption, there is little empirical evidence exploring the teaching and learning processes embedded within this type of simulation. This exploratory study provides insight into the nature of these processes through the use of qualitative methods.

OBJECTIVE:

To assess whether structured team briefings improve operating room communication. Design, Setting, and

PARTICIPANTS:

This 13-month prospective study used a preintervention/postintervention design. All staff and trainees in the division of general surgery at a Canadian academic tertiary care hospital were invited to participate. Participants included 11 general surgeons, 24 surgical trainees, 41 operating room nurses, 28 anesthesiologists, and 24 anesthesia trainees.

INTERVENTION:

CONTEXT:

Safe clinical practice is inextricably linked to team-working. Delivering patient safety education interprofessionally heightens students' awareness of the importance of effective team-working for safe care and care delivery.

METHODS:

We conducted a comparative study using mixed-method analysis among medical students learning about patient safety, either uni- or interprofessionally, towards the end of their training. Emphasis is placed on the detailed analysis of qualitative data relating to student perceptions of the event before and afterwards.

The objective of this study was to better understand the long-term effects of an improved model for cooperation on employment between rehabilitation professionals in vocational rehabilitation (VR). To compare these effects with those associated with the traditional model of cooperation. The study featured a group of patients who participated in a developmental project. All of the patients had some degree of restricted work capacity, which was evidenced somatically as well as mentally/socially.

BACKGROUND:

In response to current trends in healthcare education, teachers at the Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences implemented a New Curriculum Model (NCM) in 2006, building a curriculum to better transition students from didactic to clinical education. Through the implementation of interprofessional education and simulated clinical scenarios, educators created a setting to develop, contextualize and apply students' skills before entry to the clinical environment.

AIMS:

Medical and nursing students organized a contextual interprofessional learning experience involving observation of surgical safety practices according to the parameters of the World Health Organization (WHO) surgical safety checklist. Students were oriented to patient safety principles, operating room (OR) protocol, and the WHO surgical safety checklist. One hundred thirty students participated in interprofessional OR visitations.

The Expanded Learning and Dedication to Elders in the Region (ELDER) project addressed the needs of under-served older adults by educating health care providers in home health and long-term care facilities. Four agencies in a health professional shortage/medically underserved area participated. Focus groups were held to determine agency-specific educational needs. Curricula from the John A. Hartford Foundation were adapted to design unique curricula for each agency and level of personnel during the first 2 years.