Development of a pilot interprofessional education workshop for healthcare students and assessment of interprofessional collaborative competency attainment.

We describe the development and student evaluation of a collaborative health service provider and higher education institution initiative designed to deliver an Interprofessional Education (IPE) pilot workshop program for healthcare students. The aim was to investigate whether an IPE workshop would result in improved student confidence in self-reported interprofessional competencies using the Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Scale (ICCAS) tool. The workshops involved interprofessional student groups working on a patient case followed by a facilitator-led discussion and patient representative interaction. There were three different voluntary, extra-curricular workshops. A total of 99 students registered, from 3rd to 5th year undergraduate and 2nd year graduate entry healthcare programs at a single Irish university in February 2022. Ninety-three post-workshop survey responses showed statistically significant improvements in the ICCAS subscales of Communication, Collaboration, Roles and Responsibilities, Collaborative Patient/Family-Centered Approach, and Team Functioning; Conflict Management showed less change. Students reported positively on the benefit of the patient representative, the workshop format, and the opportunity to collaborate with students from other professions. Our findings indicate that this was a beneficial and effective way to deliver IPE across a range of healthcare professions that led to improvements in self-reported interprofessional competencies.

Teaching acute hospital staff and students about patient flow.

Good patient flow in an acute hospital is concerned with ensuring patients experience minimal delays throughout the hospital journey, from the emergency department to the wards, outpatients and to a suitable discharge destination. Good flow requires effective processes, staff buy-in and staff education. This study aimed to explore ways in which this topic is currently taught in an Irish acute hospital group. Participants were recruited to engage in semi-structured interviews about their experience of teaching patient flow. Following qualitative data analysis using a structured analysis guide, five main themes were identified: current methods, unstructured nature of teaching, frustration with frequency, dissemination of teaching/learning and opportunities for improvement. Recommendations from this study could be used to support a formalised approach to teaching this topic in the future. The use of the Teaching for Understanding framework and Universal Design for Learning principles are strongly advocated to support the development of a nationwide module, to structure the topics to be taught and provide guidance on how to effectively and efficiently teach this topic in Ireland.