SPECIAL INTEREST REPORT PLATFORM PRESENTATION

INTERPROFESSIONAL CLINICS READY TO SHARE THEIR WISDOM: A PILOT PROJECT FOR INTERPROFESSIONAL PLACEMENT. Asseraf-Pasin L¹, Redden K¹, Birlean C¹, Takahashi S², Laflamme E¹, Shore B¹; ¹McGill University. ²Shriners Hospital for Children

PURPOSE: A unique interprofessional education program (IEP) was developed to achieve interprofessional education (IPE) in a clinical placement wherein the clinic’s team was interprofessional in nature. The purpose of sharing this program is to open international dialogues within the physiotherapy community to promote professional preparation that will equip students and educators to meet the needs of Canada’s increasingly interprofessional health care system. RELEVANCE: The program was a response to Health Canada’s mandate to understand and promote IPE in order to further improve an interprofessional approach to patient and family-centered health care. Empirical studies show the benefits of interprofessional practice (IPP) (Biver, 2000 & Brown, 2000). There is some empirical evidence, although very limited, showing the benefits of IPE in specific patient populations (Freeth, D., Hammick, M., et al., 2002; Hammick, M., 2000). A long-term goal is to longitudinally and comparatively document the outcomes from this program. DESCRIPTION: A clinical experience of five weeks in duration offered five students (2 from physiotherapy, two from nursing, and one from occupational therapy) the opportunity to participate in interprofessional clinical placement experiences and to talk explicitly about interprofessionalism. The clinic was a well-functioning interprofessional team and saw their workplace as an opportunity for students from various health care fields to collaborate and develop (a) an understanding of the expertise that each discipline brings to the solution of health problems, (b) clinical competencies, (c) communication skills, and (d) an IP treatment plan for clients with Spina Bifida. The challenge presented to this IP team was that of program planning. An interprofessional initiative funded by Health Canada served as a driver and scaffold for the IEP by providing a workshop to clinical educators and program planners about IPE. Within this workshop, clinical educators and program planners developed the details of their IEP curriculum. This curriculum will be described from the clinical educators’ and students’ perspectives EVALUATION: Clinical educators employed a self-formative assessment by meeting regularly to discuss the progress and challenges of the IEP. The conclusions drawn from these conversations and feedback from students about their experiences through standardized questionnaires and a journaling activity have already begun to shape the next IEP to be implemented in this setting. All data gathered will be stored for a long-term longitudinal analysis of the evolution and outcomes of this IEP CONCLUSIONS: Planning and constant reflection through the program’s process are crucial aspects of successful interprofessional education programs. Students and clinical educators had positive appraisals. The key challenge reported is creating a balanced schedule between time spent on clinical competencies and interprofessionalism. IMPLICATIONS: The benefit of evaluating a small, finite IEP is that the product is a ‘nugget’ of lessons learned and outcomes from interprofessional clinical placements. This nugget is informative to research attempting to evaluate outcomes of IPE, and future forms of the IEP in other interprofessional clinical settings. The most direct implication of the positive outcomes this program demonstrated is the continuation of it. The five-week IEP will be implemented in this clinical setting approximately three times a year indefinitely. KEYWORDS: Interprofessional team/ student clinical experience/ Interprofessionalism. FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: None. CONTACT: liliane.asseraf.pasin@mcgill.ca

ETHICS COMMITTEE: McGill University, Faculty of Medicine, Montreal, Canada