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Small group learning is an interactive activity that requires a skilled teacher with the ability to facilitate and debrief. Approximately 250 students from seven health professions were enrolled in a first year interprofessional education course that focused on the importance of communication and collaboration. Weekly faculty debrief sessions were conducted and were utilized to share the teachers perspectives with facilitative teaching as well as for feedback and improvement strategies.

Interprofessional practice implies that health professionals are able to contribute patient care in a collaborative environment. In this paper, it is argued that in a hospital the nurses' station is a form of symbolic power. The term could be reframed as a "health team hub," which fosters a place for communication and interprofessional working. Studies have found that design of the Nurses' Station can impact on the walking distance of hospital staff, privacy for patients and staff, jeopardize patient confidentiality and access to resources.

PubMed URL:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22233373

Transformation in the structure and delivery of services for children and young people in the UK Children Act (Department for Education & Skills, 2004. The Children Act. London: HMSO) initiated new alliances between statutory, public and voluntary agencies. Traditional relationships and notions of partnership have been extended, necessitating an innovative approach to dialogue and multiple perspectives.

An interprofessional team of maternity care providers and academics developed a pilot interprofessional education (IPE) program in maternity care for undergraduate students in nursing, midwifery and medicine. There are few published studies examining IPE programs in maternity care, particularly at the undergraduate level, that examine long-term outcomes. This paper outlines findings from a case study that explored how participation in an IPE program in maternity care may enhance student knowledge, skills/attitudes, and may promote their collaborative behavior in the practice setting.

Transitions between health care settings are a high-risk period for care quality and patient safety (Coleman, 2003; Picker Institute, 1999), particularly for older patients - such as those with hip fracture - who have complex needs and may undergo multiple care transitions. We sought to understand the key elements of "success" in care transition. Using a strengths-based perspective (Rapp, 1998; Saleebey, 2006), we focused on interprofessional health care providers' perspectives of what constitutes a "good" care transition for elderly hip fracture patients.

OBJECTIVE:

This article describes an evaluation of a curriculum approach to integrating interprofessional education (IPE) in collaborative mental health practice across the pre- to post-licensure continuum of medical education.

METHODS:

A systematic evaluation of IPE activities was conducted, utilizing a combination of evaluation study designs, including: pretest-posttest control group; one-group pre-test-post-test; and one-shot case study. Participant satisfaction, attitudes toward teamwork, and self-reported teamwork abilities were key evaluative outcome measures.

The aim of this study was to ascertain experiences and perceptions among physiotherapists (PTs) in Sweden regarding the concept of work ability as well as their perspectives of their professional role in work ability assessments. We conducted an in-depth interview study with four male and twelve female physiotherapists working in the field of occupational health care, orthopaedics, primary health care or rehabilitation. Qualitative content analysis was applied to the data. Work ability was perceived as the ability to perform work tasks as requested.

Effective communication and coordination are critical components for improving collaborative care delivery among different healthcare providers who work in mobile and time-pressured environments. Increasingly, healthcare providers are exploring alternative communication technologies to help bridge the temporal and spatial issues that are often inherent in the clinical communication conundrum.

Interprofessional teamwork is practised when the care needs of patients are complex. Little is known about the extent to which team competence really determines patient interventions. The aim of the study was to examine the degree of multidimensionality in patient discussions in psychiatry, and to how different professions contribute. Psychiatric teams were observed during 30 team meetings. A content analysis was used to examine the amount of attention given to medical, psychological and social aspects.