Christie Newton

Building capacity for interprofessional practice.

Background:  Evidence indicates that professional development focused on collaborative practice can improve the quality of care and patient outcomes in specific populations. However, current educational knowledge does not include how to teach professionals to provide interprofessional collaborative care.

The Health Care Team Challenge™: developing an international interprofessional education research collaboration

Interprofessional education (IPE) to improve and increase interprofessional collaborative practice (IPC) has been documented for over 50 years in Canada, but it is within the last 15 years that it has gained attention in research, education and practice contexts. IPE is defined as two or more professions that learn with from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care (CAIPE 2002). Early drivers for a renewed interest in IPE and IPC derive from an emerging interest in new health service delivery models such as integrated care clinics and primary health care and IPE and IPC have taken the center stage nationally and globally...

Contemporary IssuesThe Health Care Team Challenge™: Developing an international interprofessional education research collaboration☆☆☆★★★

Interprofessional education (IPE) to improve and increase interprofessional collaborative practice (IPC) has been documented for over 50 years in Canada, but it is within the last 15 years that it has gained attention in research, education and practice contexts. IPE is defined as two or more professions that learn with from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care (CAIPE 2002). Early drivers for a renewed interest in IPE and IPC derive from an emerging interest in new health service delivery models such as integrated care clinics and primary health care and IPE and IPC have taken the center stage nationally and globally...

Interdisciplinary primary health care research training through TUTOR-PHC: the insiders' view.

Recent policy initiatives in Canada have highlighted the lack of research capacity among most disciplines involved in primary health care, resulting in a majority of clinical and health services research being conducted in secondary and tertiary care centers (Russell et al., 2007). At the same time, interprofessional care is increasingly being seen as a preferred approach to address the complex and wide-ranging clinical problems evident in primary health care. Interdisciplinary research training has therefore been proposed as a way to ensure that research evidence can address the complex interplay between biomedical, psychosocial and organizational dimensions of primary health care. The design of interdisciplinary research training programs requires close attention to the individual components and process factors that explain their long-term effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) (Campbell et al., 2000). However, little has been reported on the process and influence of such programs. The goals of this paper are threefold: (i) to describe the Transdisciplinary Understanding and Training on Research in Primary Health Care (TUTOR-PHC) program, an interdisciplinary research training program; (ii) to identify content and process elements that were seen as key to its success; and (iii) to outline its influence on participants. As a cohort of trainees and mentor (with backgrounds in health administration, education, epidemiology, family medicine, nursing, physical therapy and psychology), we report on our experience of working together as an ‘‘interdisciplinary research team’’ throughout the program. We hope this paper will contribute to the knowledge base and design of effective interdisciplinary research training programs in the future, by providing participants’ views.

Reflections on facilitating an interprofessional problem-based learning module

Providing health professional students with structured interprofessional educational (IPE) opportunities will ensure they gain the necessary knowledge and skills to work collaboratively within the evolving health care system (Herbert, 2005; Barr & Ross, 2006). To that end, skilled, knowledgeable, interprofessional faculty are integral to the successful implementation of IPE interventions (Barker & Oandasan, 2005). The literature stresses the importance of faculty development for successful IPE, but falls short in outlining how this should be accomplished (Steinert, 2005; Kwan et al., 2006). In an effort to increase the number of IPE opportunities available to health and human service students at the University of British Columbia (UBC), a multi-professional group of faculty developed an interprofessional problem-based learning (IP-PBL) module. While the project was designed with a student focus, post-implementation discussion with module facilitators offered some invaluable insight into the unique challenges associated with facilitating IP-PBL. This paper describes the pilot IP-PBL module, summarizes the reflections of the facilitators and suggests strategies to prepare facilitators for similar IPE experiences. The authors hope this paper will contribute to the knowledge base and design of effective interprofessional faculty training programs and stimulate further research in the area of interprofessional professional development (IP-PD).

Health Care Team Challenges: an international review and research agenda.

Abstract Academic institutions worldwide have been tasked with embedding interprofessional education (IPE) into the curricula of health and human service professions. There are few internationally shared examples of interprofessional (IP) learning activities reported in the literature. This report describes the formation of an international IPE research network and provides a summary of the implementation and evaluation of one such shared IPE example, the Health Care Team Challenge™ (HCTC™). We outline the format, key features and evaluation strategies of the HCTC™ IPE. An international research agenda to test cases and assess learning processes are described, and directions for dissemination and sustainability are proposed.