BACKGROUND:

AIM:

To explore the perceptions of staff working in and referring to community-based intermediate care teams in Wales.

BACKGROUND:

Central and devolved governments have high expectations of intermediate care to promote independence and quality of life for older people and to solve the system pressures within the acute hospital sector. Developing an evidence base of the effectiveness of a model of care that is characterized by diversity and difference in practice is problematic.

METHOD:

We examined interprofessional (IP) attitudes and relationships within an emergent network, the Canadian Obesity Network (CON), using semi-structured individual interviews with 13 members of the CON. CON is a newly formed network of obesity researchers, health professionals, and other stakeholders whose vision is to reduce the mental, physical, and economic burden of obesity on Canadians. Analysis of participant contributions led to a "Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?" framework of IP practice and obesity.

BACKGROUND:

High quality end-of-life care in the community is achieved with effective multidisciplinary teamwork, interprofessional communication between GPs and district nurses, and early referral of patients to district nurses. These aspects of palliative care are highlighted in the Gold Standards Framework, a programme recently established in UK primary care.

AIM:

To investigate the extent to which the framework influences interprofessional relationships and communication, and to compare GPs' and nurses' experiences.

DESIGN OF STUDY:

Teamwork, collaboration and interprofessional care are becoming the new standard in health care, and service delivery in work practice is no exception. Most rehabilitation professionals believe that they intuitively know how to work collaboratively with others such as workers, employers, insurers and other professionals. However, little information is available that can assist rehabilitation professionals in enacting authentic transdisciplinary approaches in work practice contexts.

UK government policy is encouraging healthcare staff to blur traditional roles, in the drive to increase joint working between practitioners. However, there is currently a lack of clarity regarding the impact that changes to traditional working practice might have on staff delivering the services, or on patient care. In this article, we report findings from three qualitative case studies examining interprofessional practice in stroke care, in which the influence of professional differences emerged as a significant theme.

AIM:

To extract meaning from registered nurses' lived experiences in their professional collaboration with orthopaedic surgeons.

BACKGROUND:

Interprofessional collaboration between registered nurses and orthopaedic surgeons faces challenges on many levels. The literature offers theories on collaboration, but reality seems to be in conflict with theory, especially in somatic hospitals. Little empirical research on lived experience has been conducted in these settings.

METHOD:

BACKGROUND:

Clinical placements have been traditionally offered on a profession specific basis, and as a result, we have a good understanding of salient issues related to their development and delivery. We know less about the planning and implementation of collaborative clinical placements. Aims: This paper presents key findings from a qualitative study that explored the collaborative processes connected to an interprofessional planning group who created and implemented a clinical placement for medical, nursing and allied health students.

METHODS:

Faculties (i.e., schools) of medicine along with their sister health discipline faculties can be important organizational vehicles to promote, cultivate, and direct interprofessional education (IPE). The authors present information they gathered in 2007 about five Canadian IPE programs to identify key factors facilitating transformational change within institutional settings toward successful IPE, including (1) how successful programs start, (2) the ways successful programs influence academia to bias toward change, and (3) the ways academia supports and perpetuates the success of programs.

In this article, I explore what happens when specialist palliative care staff meet together to discuss patients under their care. Many studies (e.g., Atkinson) have discussed how health care practitioners in various settings use rhetorical strategies when presenting cases in situations such as ward rounds and team meetings. Strategies for arguing and persuading are central to medical practice in the interprofessional context.