Development of interprofessional healthcare teamwork skills: mapping students' process of learning.

Higher education institutions commonly prepare future healthcare workers to engage in increasingly complex, interprofessional healthcare environments through interprofessional education. Development of appropriate teamwork skills is complex and takes time. However, much of the research on student engagement with teamwork in higher education has been focused on the end goal of teamwork. This obscures the process of how students learn to work in interprofessional healthcare teams and in what ways, over time. The current study used an exploratory interpretive approach to obtaining students' experiences, perceptions and developing understanding of teamwork from the start of their undergraduate studies, through to completion of five semesters of group or teamwork projects. Through qualitative methodology, educators explored student experiences of teamwork, their focus at designated points of their undergraduate teamwork, and the meaning they attributed to being a member of a team. Student perceptions of successful teamwork developed over time to a positive and purposeful orientation toward teamwork, learner attributes that enhanced team function, and a growing awareness of how the assessment context affected team function. By mapping these processes of learning over time, educators can gain a clearer understanding of influences and experiences that impact on student learning in teamwork.

Existing models of interprofessional collaborative practice in primary healthcare: a scoping review.

Educating students to provide interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) in primary healthcare (PHC) requires a robust rigorous model relevant to future practice. A scoping review was undertaken to identify existing models of IPCP in PHC, the interprofessional or collaborative theories on which the models were based, reported outcomes, and enablers of and barriers to IPCP in PHC. The 35 eligible studies included 27 models, most of which were designed for a specific PHC site or program. Although almost half of the studies cited established interprofessional competencies in support of the models, only 13 included theoretical support, and only two cited interprofessional theory. Outcomes for clients, practitioners, practices, and students were primarily experiential and positive. A few researchers reported negative experiences or no difference between comparison groups. Key enablers of IPCP in PHC were strong supportive, inclusive relationships and practices. The most common barriers were time and resource constraints and poor understanding of IPCP. The review suggests a need for a stronger theoretical basis for IPCP in PHC that can accommodate different settings, and for more observational research that links relationship factors to outcomes at the practice, population, and wider health system levels.

Learning person-centredness interprofessionally: an uneasy student journey.

Patient- or person-centered care is a discourse embraced by most clinicians involved in interprofessional care but generally overlooks thepersons of the practitioners and students involved. This paper explores students' developing perceptions of person-centered care during participation in an interprofessional education program where interprofessional pairs of students partner with patients living with a long-term condition or life-changing event. Weekly focus groups with students and educators over the 7 weeks of the program revealed a rich evolving understanding of person-centredness amongst participant students as they built relationships with both their patient and student partner. Students and educators identified shifts in students' interprofessional person-centered perspectives and practices, growing awareness of patient personhood and of stories as key to creating and maintaining space for listening and dialogue, and conscious attention to thoughtful, non-judgmental listening and responses. Although initially uncomfortable, uncertain and "stuck" students came to value working in a holistic relational partnership to explore what mattered to the patient, looking beyond the diagnosis to the multi-faceted nature of living with a life-changing condition or event. Importantly, students' growing self-awareness and participation as persons enhanced person-centredness, leading to questioning of previous healthcare practice experiences where mutual person-centredness was overlooked. Uncertainty about student capability led some educators to reassert control of the process, which students perceived as counterproductive usurping of their personhood and professional autonomy. The research findings suggest that an interprofessional program focused on person-centered relationship building develops student awareness and understanding of mutual personhood but requires high levels of reciprocal trust.

Graduates' development of interprofessional practice capability during their early socialisation into professional roles.

Graduates entering the healthcare workforce can expect to undertake interprofessional practices, requiring them to work at the intersection of knowledge and practice boundaries that have been built over years of socialisation in their respective professions. Yet, in complex health environments, where health challenges go beyond the knowledge and skills of any single profession, there is a growing concern that healthcare practitioners lack capability to collaborate with each other. This article presents the findings from a year-long hermeneutic phenomenological study of graduates' temporal experiences of practice roles in their respective fields of healthcare and in collaboration with other professions. Research findings emerged through an inductive analytic process using thematic analysis techniques and provides an insight into graduates' early professional practice in contemporary healthcare contexts and the development of their professional practice at the interface of professional boundaries. The 18 graduates from six health professions developed their professional practice in working contexts where intersecting professional boundaries resulted in strengthening professional identity in their chosen professions, through articulating distinct knowledge and skills to other professions during collaborative work. Concurrently they established flexible working relationships with members of other professions, resulting in expanding health perspectives and extending practice knowledge and skills beyond their distinct professions. The study provides new understanding of the relationship between areas of professionalism, identity, and collaborative practice in an evolving health workforce, through the experiences of graduates in their early work as registered health practitioners.