Please consider these activities below when you host your next student.

Why Interprofessional Education?

There is a growing need to change the way health care is delivered to ensure timely access to health and human service professionals who provide comprehensive care.  Interprofessional collaboration is increasingly acknowledged as the best means of accomplishing this.

In order to have the skills and knowledge to practice interprofessionally, health care providers need to be trained interprofessionally.

Ideally, interprofessional education should be integrated throughout the continuum of learning, which starts with pre-licensure, university-based education; includes practice-based education that occurs during placements; and is maintained through continuing professional development.  Most learners spend at least 40% of their training in clinical settings that range from acute care settings to community-based offices and clinics throughout the province, making this an ideal space for them to learn with, from and about other professions.

Here are 3 suggestions for when the OT students are on placement:

1. Reflection on an Interprofessional Education Session: This activity will enable learners to:

• Develop a different understanding of issues of common concern for a range of health care providers &
• Understand the roles of other health care providers and the contributions they make to the health care team

Before the session, learners should reflect on:

What is the purpose of the education session?

What do I  hope to learn through participating in the education session:

• • About the topic?
  • About the team/other team members?

After the session questions to consider include:

• • Who was involved? (e.g. team members, other health care staff, community members)
  • What was the value in learning with other professionals? What were the benefits of and challenges to learning together in this experience?
  • What did I learn about your professional role and the role of others in the context of the session?
  • What could have been different during this session to enable additional interprofessional learning about, from and with each other?
  • How will I apply what I learned today in the future?

2. Shadowing a client through their appointments

The activity will enable learners to:

• Describe their own roles, responsibilities, values and scope of practice effectively to  team members
• Explain how other professions’ goals are related to and different from their own role
• Relate their learning to patient/client goals
• Describe why or why not interprofessional collaboration is required for patient/client care
• Explain the concept of a team
• Demonstrate effective team skills by:
  • Sharing information effectively
  • Listening attentively
  • Using understandable communications
  • Responding to feedback from others

Points to consider after the shadowing:

• What did I learn about the roles on this team that I did not know previously?
• What are the similarities and differences between the roles (including yours)?
• What else do I want to learn about the team and its members? What new learning objectives have now emerged for me?
• How will this experience influence my role as a professional and team member?

This opportunity is so rich in learning, much more so than just having the student “meet” with other team members.

3. Participation in a Team Meeting

The activity will enable learners to:

• Identify factors that contribute to or hinder team collaboration
• Recognize the dynamic nature of teams
• Consider conditions that promote collaboration
• Analyze team dynamics  and stages of team development

Before the meeting, Learners should think about:

• What supports will you need to perform as an effective interprofessional team member and how should you prepare for collaborating in team meetings?
• What do you expect will happen through collaborating?  E.g. what type of information do you expect you will receive?  What information will they expect from you?
• What do you expect will happen when you participate in and observe the team meetings? E.g. How will the team function?  What will support the team to reach its goals?

Reflective Questions to consider after the meeting:

• Briefly describe the purpose of the meeting and your role and your profession’s role in it.
• Who was involved? (e.g. patient/client, team members, other health care staff, community members) Who wasn’t there and how was information from that person/profession shared? (e.g. how was the patient’s voice expressed?)
• What ‘group roles’ were evident such as chair, facilitator, mediator, clarifier?
• Describe the group process or how the team interacted (e.g. consider how team members behaved, communicated, solved problems, made decisions, provided and responded to feedback, addressed conflict).
• What did the team do well?  What could have been done differently?
• What did you learn that you can apply to your own practice in your role?  What learning will you take as a team member in the future?

These activities were generously shared by © Centre for Interprofessional Education, University of Toronto, 2010 and adapted with permission  by UBC Health

This post comes courtesy of Hina Mahmood, 2016 MOT Graduate

Environments such as hospitals, rehabilitation facilities and community health centers are a hub of activity involving people from multiple health care professions working together to promote health and well being. While these health care providers have implemented collaborative environments with respect to clinical care, the physical work spaces of many health care organizations are more segregated and hierarchical. Doctors have their single offices and nurses congregate around the nursing stations. Even within the rehabilitation department, occupational and physical therapists have their own designated work areas. While this separation makes sense from an administrative and organizational perspective, it hampers potential for interprofessional collaboration which can prove to be an invaluable opportunity, especially for students.

Fieldwork educators can foster a collaborative environment by creating shared spaces for their students.

• Encourage them to do chart review, documentation and research at a computer terminal located in a common space. This allows them to interact with nurses, case managers, social workers and even doctors.
• Urge students to take initiative and actively seek out other members of a client’s health care team to explore and discuss care plans and possible interventions.
• Shadowing other professionals that work in different health care disciplines (i.e. nurses or social work) can provide students with a broader perspective into how they form their clinical reasoning.
• Students should attend and take active part in team meetings and/or grand rounds. On occasion fieldwork educators can also organizestudent-led, interprofessional meetings.
• Invite students to have lunch in the staff room – you will be surprised by how often they feel as if they do not belong or aren’t welcome to join.
• Pair up your student with students from other disciplines that might also be doing their fieldwork placements (eg. physiotherapy, nursing, or social work)

As fieldwork educators, students are looking to you to not only learn and grow as occupational therapists but also as competent health care professionals. You are providing them with the foundational knowledge on how to work effectively and collaborate in a team environment while ensuring that clients receive the best care possible. This creates a trusting and safe learning environment and promotes reflective practice and lifelong learning.

Image retrieved form www.emaze.com/@AOWCFOII/Interprofessional-Practice

This post is brought to you courtesy of Aja Hann, MOTII student, class of 2016. Edited by Donna Drynan

What thoughts run through your mind when a student you are supervising asks about shadowing other health professionals? UBC occupational therapy (OT) students are extremely lucky in t that they come from a program that promotes interdisciplinary learning. According to a document from the World Health Organization (2010), only 8.9 percent of OTs worldwide receive interprofessional training. This is in sharp contrast to UBC, where 100% of the OT students receive training. Preceptors and students alike should consider having interdisciplinary collaborations and shadowing experiences reflected  in the placement learning  objectives. It is the only chance we will really get to shadow other professions. ***Check out what the WHO thinks of interdisciplinary care http://www.who.int/hrh/resources/framework_action/en/index.html]***

Sometimes, as students, we are so wrapped up in our skill development and evaluations that we miss opportunities for interdisciplinary learning during fieldwork. As a student on placement, I was very nervous about expressing interest in shadowing other professionals in the hospital because I was unsure how this request would be perceived. Luckily, I had great preceptors who went out of their way to find me opportunities when I did get the nerve to bring it up, and I think that I will be a better health professional because of it! Through these experiences I  learned what some of the professions in the hospital do (for example – I had no idea what a psychometrist did before my second placement), and I also gained a deeper understanding of what individuals undergo when they are in the hospital. Further, interdisciplinary training creates opportunities in rural or remote settings for Occupational Therapists to explain our role on the team to an alternative profession we are shadowing. I would recommend that  preceptors, allow such collaboration to occur by organizing shadow opportunities. Do you know any outstanding health care professionals beyond OT who would make great teachers for your student? If you do, think about asking them if they would be open to having an OT student shadow them! For students – the future of the healthcare system – these fundamental skills need to be made available to support our training, future practice, and consequently, improved service we can provide to our clients.