Resource Center

INTRODUCTION:

Recent research suggests that effective interprofessional communication and collaboration can positively influence patient satisfaction and outcomes. Health professional communication skills do not necessarily improve over time but can improve with formal communication skills training (CST). This article describes the development, evaluation, and lessons learned for a novel theater-based role-play CST program designed to improve community cancer care for patients and families by enhancing health care professionals' communication skills.

INTERVENTION:

In this paper, the authors outline the rationale, planning, delivery, results, evaluation and knowledge transfer strategies employed in offering an eight-hour education day offered 12 times in 2010, to a total of 200 staff in three Toronto General Hospital (TGH) intensive care units (ICU) at the University Health Network (UHN). The integration of members from the point-of-care staff teams into the planning, development, presentation and attendance was a critical success factor for this initiative.

Work-integrated learning is essential to health professional education, but faces increasing academic and industry resource pressures. The aim of this pilot "Professional Practice Project" was to develop and implement an innovative education intervention for clinical educators across several health disciplines. The project used interprofessional collaboration as its underlying philosophy, and a participatory action research methodology in four cycles: Cycle 1: Formation of an interprofessional project executive and working party from academic staff.

The need for interprofessional education is now firmly embedded in undergraduate healthcare curricula frameworks in Northern Ireland and has a role to play in preparation for professional practice. A questionnaire determining students' "readiness" for interprofessional education has been widely used and reported in the literature but there are other factors that contribute to students' abilities to learn in an interprofessional context.

BACKGROUND:

A need exists for measures to evaluate the impact of interprofessional education (IPE) interventions. We undertook development and evaluation of a scale to measure self-efficacy perceptions of pre-licensure students in medicine, dentistry and health professions. The scale was developed in the context of a project entitled, "Seamless Care: An Experiential Model of Interprofessional Education for Collaborative Patient-Centered Practice".

INTRODUCTION:

The main purpose of this study was, firstly, to evaluate the effect of an intervention aimed at improving interprofessional collaboration and service quality, and secondly, to examine if collaboration could predict burnout, engagement and service quality among human service professionals working with children and adolescents. The intervention included the establishment of local interprofessional teams and offering courses. The sample was recruited from six different small municipalities in Northern Norway (N = 93) and a comparison group from four similar municipalities (N = 58).

BACKGROUND: Good intercollegial communication is a relatively unstudied topic, although it is important for both health professionals and patients, contributing to enhanced well-being, self-awareness and integrity for health professionals, and positively affecting patient outcome and satisfaction.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether a communication skills training course would improve intercollegial communication in an orthopaedic department.

PURPOSE:

Since the release of the 1988 World Health Organization report on the need for interprofessional education (IPE) programs, various forms of IPE curricula have been implemented within institutions of higher education. The purpose of this paper is to describe results of a study using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) to compare physician assistant (PA) students with other health professions students.

METHODS: