AIM:

To examine the work and perceived impact of a dedicated specialist care homes support team.

METHOD:

A constructivist methodology was adopted. Data were collected in the form of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with staff, telephone interviews with managers, observation of meetings and teaching sessions, and analysis of documents.

FINDINGS:

This project brought together community-based practitioners and academics to develop and deliver interventions designed to enhance the leadership abilities of the designated leaders of seven rural/small town-based palliative care teams. Members of these community-based teams have already gained recognition for their teams' leadership and service delivery in their communities. All of the teams had worked closely with most members of the academic team prior to this project.

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19005957

Primary health care is undergoing significant organizational change, including the development of interdisciplinary health care teams. Understanding how teams function effectively in primary care will assist training programs in teaching effective interprofessional practices. This study aimed to explore the views of members of primary health care teams regarding what constitutes a team, team effectiveness and the factors that affect team effectiveness in primary care.

We studied the workings of a rehabilitation team in a videoconference setting to note the pros and cons of videoconferencing in the development of interprofessional care plans (ICPs). We recorded every videoconference held by the teams of the specialized centre and the regional centre for clients with traumatic brain injuries over an 18-month period. Thirteen recorded videoconferences, lasting for 30-98 min, were analysed through an observation grid.

CONTEXT: The growing emphasis on teamwork within the National Health Service (NHS) has made it a priority to understand how health care teams learn together and cope with change.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore how collective learning and change happen in primary care teams and how the process varies across the disciplines of general medical practice, pharmacy and dentistry.

METHODS: This study reports on qualitative data gathered from 10 primary care teams over 1 year, by means of observational visits and 38 semi-structured interviews.

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18989811

On entering higher education students become professionally socialized, and parallel with this, stereotyping takes place, students developing a more positive assessment of their own roles than those of other professions. This difference between the view of their own and other professions can contribute to creating cognitive and social boundaries between professions that hinder sharing of knowledge, which can result in poor cooperation.

This study investigates the experiences of staff and students involved in an identified Common Learning unit (module) named "Preparation for Practice". The unit was studied by those undertaking pre-registration undergraduate pathways in Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Diagnostic Radiography and Therapeutic Radiography at London South Bank University. The study comprised uni-professional, inter-professional and staff focus groups.

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to generate a theory of the interprofessional collaborative learning process of occupational therapy (OT) students who were engaged in a collaborative learning experience with students from other allied health disciplines. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews with nine OT students from four different interprofessional collaborative learning experiences at three universities.