Resource Center

Twenty-nine graduate and upper level trainees from multiple health professions functioned as temporary members on an established Geriatrics Team for a minimum of 10 hours per week during a semester. Each student completed a modified version of the Interprofessional Perception Scale pre— and post-training. Analysis showed changes in perceptions toward physicians but not physical therapists and no changes in how they thought those disciplines perceived themselves.

Realizing maximum independence for older persons requires understanding and collaboration among health professionals. Unfortunately, health professionals are often assigned to teams with no thought of preparatory team training. This paper is based on a case study which was an initial test of a conceptual model that depicts how an interdisciplinary health care team develops and maintains itself. It is a study of a 13 year-old interdisciplinary geriatrics team with no external or externally mandated leadership.

Twenty-six matched pairs of elderly male patients who had been evaluated in an outpatient geriatric evaluation unit (GEU) were assigned randomly to be followed in either a geriatrics clinic with an interdisciplinary team or a general medical clinic without an interdisciplinary team. Patients were medically stable and living in the community. At 12 months no difference was found in cognitive, affective, or functional status. Both groups of patients had similar frequencies of hospitalization, community placement, use of community services, and number of deaths.

This study addressed the question of how power is perceived and shared in a non-hierarchical interdisciplinary health care model. Eleven members of an interdisciplinary health care team were asked to: (1) rate power sources for their constructive use in team function; (2) rank team members for power position in the team; and (3) identify up to five power sources in order of importance for the three members they rated most powerful, three members rated least powerful and for themselves. The perceived power for leadership was neither equal nor hierarchical.

Preferred Citation: Weller J, Frengley R, Torrie J, Shulruf B, Jolly B, Hopley L, et al. Evaluation of an instrument to measure teamwork in multidisciplinary critical care teams. BMJ Qual Saf. 2011;20(3):216-22.

The extent to which health and social care (HSC) students hold stereotypical views of other HSC professional groups is of great potential importance to team working in health care. This paper explores students' perceptions of different HSC professional groups at the beginning of their university programmes. Findings are presented from an analysis of baseline data collected as part of the New Generation Project longitudinal cohort study which is assessing the impact of interprofessional education over time on a range of variables including stereotyping.

This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Interdisciplinary Health Team Care Conference, which took place September 15-17, 1988 at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.  It is reproduced here with the permission of the authors.

Introduction: The current state of our nation’s healthcare delivery system, including inefficiencies in healthcare delivery, health disparities, and wasteful costs, accentuates the call for responsive action. Interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP) has emerged as an innovative strategy for addressing many of these inadequacies through the restructuring of healthcare delivery systems and health professions education within the United States.

Findings from an exploratory factor analysis on the 21 item `attitudes towards health

This research was part of a Health Canada funded initiative developed to provide evidence about the effectiveness of interprofessional education (IPE) interventions to promote collaborative patient-centred care. Health professional students' ratings of health professions and the effect of IPE on those ratings were examined. Participants were divided into three groups (N=51); control, education, and practice site immersion.