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BACKGROUND:

Effective interprofessional teamwork is an essential component for the delivery of high-quality patient care in an increasingly complex medical environment. The objective is to evaluate whether the implementation of care pathways (CPs) improves teamwork in an acute hospital setting.

DESIGN AND MEASURES:

Effective interprofessional collaboration is an important factor in addressing health care needs and priorities. Educators and health care practitioners have argued that interprofessional education (IPE) is necessary to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors to work collaboratively and ultimately deliver enhanced patient/client care. The University of Toronto has implemented an introductory IPE session for approximately 1000 health science students that focuses on teamwork.

This study investigated online interaction within a curriculum unit at the University of Toronto, Canada that included an interprofessional case study discussion in a mixed-mode (face-to-face and online) format. Nine of the 81 teams that completed the four-day curriculum were selected for detailed review based on the attitudes students expressed on a survey about the value of collaborating online for enhancing their appreciation of other health care professions. Five of the teams selected were 'positive' and four were 'negative'.

BACKGROUND: Nearly all health professional students and prescribers, regardless of specialty, will care for older adults who are enrolled in or eligible for the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. Given the growing numbers of older adults, the increased burden of chronic disease, and the escalating costs of health care, health professional students and prescribers across disciplines should learn strategies to promote cost-effective prescribing and collaborate with pharmacists who are experts in medication use and costs.

The Interprofessional Rural Program of British Columbia (IRPBC) was established in 2003 as a pilot program aimed at supporting the recruitment of health and human service professionals to rural communities in British Columbia, Canada. The program was designed to expose students in the health and human service professions to rural communities and to assess whether this exposure increased the likelihood of their return to work in nonurban settings once they completed their studies.

BACKGROUND:

A four-year action research study was conducted across the Australian Capital Territory health system to strengthen interprofessional collaboration (IPC) though multiple intervention activities.

METHODS:

The Health-e-Learning project investigated the use of videoconferencing to deliver interprofessional clinical education to allied health students. Via a broadband link, students observed DVD footage of a clinical session then participated in discussion with the clinicians at the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH), Melbourne. The videoconference sessions were evaluated with respect to session content, the effectiveness of videoconferencing in providing interprofessional education (IPE) and the satisfaction with this as a supplement to facility-based placements.

OBJECTIVE:

PubMed URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19242853

This article suggests that "agreement" is a predominant feature of online discussions amongst undergraduate health and social care professionals, which is an area of concern. The context for the research is an online interprofessional learning pathway completed by ~2,800 students each year. The concept of agreement, how and why it is reached and what it indicates in an online interprofessional group is examined.