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Since the publication of its reports, Health professions education: A bridge to quality (2003) and To err is human: Building a safer health system (2000), the Institute of Medicine has continued to emphasize interprofessional education (IPE), founded on quality improvement and informatics, as a better way to prepare healthcare professionals for practice. As this trend continues, healthcare education will need to implement administrative and educational processes that encourage different professions to collaborate and share resources.

The Contextual Activity Sampling System (CASS) is a novel methodology designed for collecting data of on-going learning experiences through frequent sampling by using mobile phones. This paper describes how it for the first time has been introduced to clinical learning environments. The purposes of this study were to cross-culturally adapt the CASS tool and questionnaire for use in clinical learning environments, investigate whether the methodology is suitable for collecting data and how it is experienced by students.

An effective interprofessional medical team can efficiently coordinate health care providers to achieve the collective outcome of improving each patient's health. To determine how current teams function, four groups of business students independently observed interprofessional work rounds on four different internal medicine services in a typical academic hospital and also interviewed the participants. In all instances, caregivers had formed working groups rather than working teams.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is planning interprofessional training in electronic health records (EHRs) and medical informatics. Training will be integrated throughout the curricula and will include seminars on broad concepts supplemented with online modules, didactic lectures, and hands-on experiences.

Successful team care requires a shared understanding of roles and expertise. This paper describes the development and preliminary exploration of the psychometric properties of a tool designed to measure contributions to family practice medication-related processes. Our team identified medication-related processes commonly occurring in family practice. We assessed clinical appropriateness using a sensibility questionnaire and pilot-tested with 11 pharmacists, nurses and physicians.

Collaborative patient-centred care has the potential to address serious issues in the Canadian health-care system such as those related to increasing complexity of care; patient safety and access; and recruitment and retention of health human resources. This approach involves teams of health professionals working together to provide more coordinated and comprehensive care to clients. It places priority on the preferences of the patient and fosters respect for the skills and perspectives of all health-care providers.

AIM:

To explore interprofessional attitudes arising from shared learning in mental health.

BACKGROUND:

Inter-professional education in healthcare is a priority area for improving team-working and communication. Many studies have attempted to evaluate its benefits and challenges, although few emanate from the mental health arena. However, producing evidence to link educational input with clinical outcomes is notoriously difficult. This project attempted to produce evidence for changes in interprofessional attitudes and stereotypes.

METHOD(S):

The aim of this study was to test the feasibility and effectiveness of providing narrative training to a mixed group of doctors, nurses, social workers, and child life therapists on a pediatric oncology service for the purpose of promoting empathy, building teams, and preventing burnout. All staff members were invited to attend a weekly narrative training seminar for 6 weeks.

Research is often scholarship driven and the findings are then channelled into the practice community on the assumption that it is utilising an evidence-based approach in its service delivery. Because of persisting difficulties in bridging the practice-evidence gap in health care, there has been a call for more active links between researchers and practitioners. The authors were part of an interprofessional research initiative which originated from within an acute stroke clinical community.

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19842956