The Dalhousie Health Mentors Program builds on a long history of interprofessional health education initiatives by introducing students in health and social care professions to chronic conditions and disabilities, patient/client-centredness, interprofessional learning, and team functioning. This large interprofessional education program (16 participating programs, 650 students) connects interprofessional student teams with Health Mentors, who are adult volunteers with chronic conditions, for a learning experience that extends over one academic year.

This study explored status differences in interprofessional teams and their link with efficiency. In total, 62 teams (423 individuals) from occupational health-care, psychiatry, rehabilitation and school health-care responded to a questionnaire. Fifty-four of those teams (360 individuals) also participated in an observation session simulating problem-solving team meetings. Data were reduced to a number of indexes: self-assessed/perceived equality, functional influence and efficiency; and observed verbal dominance/activity and problem-solving capacity.

The intensive care unit (ICU), where death is common and even survivors of an ICU stay face the risk of long-term morbidity and re-admissions to the ICU, represents an important setting for improving communication about palliative and end-of-life care. Communication about the goals of care in this setting should be a high priority since studies suggest that the current quality of ICU communication is often poor and is associated with psychological distress among family members of critically ill patients.

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.

OBJECTIVE:

To explore the effect of training on patient-actor perception of care during simulated obstetric emergencies.

METHOD:

There is growing evidence to support the contention that interprofessional education (IPE) at both pre and post-qualification levels will improve professionals' abilities to work more effectively in a team and to communicate more effectively with colleagues and patients. This body of evidence, however, is primarily concerned with nursing, medical and associated professionals and students, and there are few studies that include dental students and particularly where learning occurs with the dental care professions (DCP).

CONTEXT:

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18412893

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate whether ethics rounds stimulated ethical reflection.

METHODS:

Philosopher-ethicist-led interprofessional team ethics rounds concerning dialysis patient care problems were applied at three Swedish hospitals. The philosophers were instructed to stimulate ethical reflection and promote mutual understanding between professions but not to offer solutions. Questionnaires directly before and after rounds were answered by 194 respondents. The analyses were primarily content analysis with Boyd's framework but were also statistical in nature.

OBJECTIVE:

To assess the effect of a Crew Resource Management (CRM) intervention specifically designed to improve teamwork and communication skills in a multidisciplinary obstetrical setting.

METHOD: