Interprofessional,simulation-based training in end of life care communication: a pilot study

Abstract

This paper reports on the process and outcomes of a study, designed to pilot the use of interprofessional, simulation-based training in end of life care communication. Participants comprised 50 final year medicine, nursing, physiotherapy and pharmacy students. Learning methods included observation of role play and facilitated, interactive group discussion. A Likert scale rating questionnaire was used to evaluate the impact of the learning experience. Evaluation data revealed that students were supportive of interprofessional learning and could recognise its benefits. The results indicated self-perceived improvements in knowledge, skills, confidence and competence when dealing with challenging end of life care communication situations. Comparison of pre- and post-intervention scores revealed a statistically significant positive change in the students' perceptions about their level of knowledge (Z?=??5.887, p?=?0.000). The reported benefits need to be balanced against design and delivery issues that proved labour and resource intensive. Economic evaluation is worthy of further consideration.     

Interprofessional collaboration and family member involvement in intensive care units: emerging themes from a multi-sited ethnography

Abstract

This article presents emerging findings from the first year of a two-year study, which employed ethnographic methods to explore the culture of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and family member involvement in eight North American intensive care units (ICUs). The study utilized a comparative ethnographic approach – gathering observation, interview and documentary data relating to the behaviors and attitudes of healthcare providers and family members across several sites. In total, 504 hours of ICU-based observational data were gathered over a 12-month period in four ICUs based in two US cities. In addition, 56 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a range of ICU staff (e.g. nurses, doctors and pharmacists) and family members. Documentary data (e.g. clinical guidelines and unit policies) were also collected to help develop an insight into how the different sites engaged organizationally with IPC and family member involvement. Directed content analysis enabled the identification and categorization of major themes within the data. An interprofessional conceptual framework was utilized to help frame the coding for the analysis. The preliminary findings presented in this paper illuminate a number of issues related to the nature of IPC and family member involvement within an ICU context. These findings are discussed in relation to the wider interprofessional and health services literature.     

Interprofessional aspects of the dignity in care program in Wales

Wales is one of constituent countries of the UK and a Dignity in Care Program was launched in 2007. In this retrospective thematic review paper, interprofessional aspects are considered in the 6 training events, 3 listening events and 22 small projects delivered within the program. While there was good professional engagement with the program, the actual impact on health and social care service provision is difficult to evidence. One of the future challenges in Wales might be to develop a prospective performance management system for dignity in care which measures impact rather than proxy measures of engagement.     

Interprofessional spanning and building boundaries when supporting potential embryo donors to stem cell research

When patients undergo fertility treatment, it is likely that a surplus of embryos will be created. The existence of these surplus embryos creates responsibilities for the clinics where they are stored and for the people who own them. Since 2001, the owners of the surplus embryos in the UK have the option to donate them to be used in stem cell research (SCR). This development has generated a new population—potential embryo donors to SCR—who have unique support needs as they are neither fertility patients nor donors. However, little is known how lay and professional stakeholders associated with fertility treatment and SCR have conceptualised the support needs of potential embryo donors to SCR or have responded to the additional task once the option became available. In this article, we draw on Gieryn’s concept of boundary-work to explore how the emergence of donating embryos to SCR has provided opportunities for embryologists, counsellors, and scientists to shift, adapt, or confirm their roles, knowledge base, and areas of expertise. We present a thematic analysis of 21 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with UK lay and professional stakeholders associated with fertility treatment and SCR. We conclude with reflections on the implications this boundary-work has for those contemplating donating embryos to SCR and the care they receive when making their decision. Such insights are pertinent given the current policy and practice discussions led by the National Donation Strategy Group to improve the care of donors in the UK.     

Recovery‐oriented practice: Participant observations of the interactions between patients and health professionals in mental health inpatient settings

Despite an increasing attention towards recovery orientation in the mental health services, the provision of recovery‐oriented practice is challenged in the inpatient wards. Moreover, the existing research within this area is modest and we currently have limited knowledge of how recovery‐oriented practice is integrated into inpatient settings. A cornerstone of recovery‐oriented practice is the collaboration, patient involvement, and choices, particularly when deciding and planning treatment options. Thus, this ethnographic study aimed to explore how recovery‐oriented practice is reflected in the interactions between patients and health professionals around treatment in two mental health inpatient wards in Denmark. Participant observations were conducted in two mental health inpatient wards from November 2014 to January 2015. The Recovery Self‐Assessment scale inspired the observation guide and the initial data analysis. Field notes were analysed deductively and inductively using qualitative content analysis. One theme with four subthemes emerged showing that interactions were characterized by an ‘as‐if collaboration’ where ‘negotiating on limited grounds’ was an important feature of interactions, in which health professionals seemed to have superiority, acting on behalf of ‘competing demands’. Patients had to navigate in a field of ‘inconsistent guidance and postponed decisions’ and faced tendencies of ‘control and condescending communication’. The results suggest that recovery oriented values such as equal collaboration, choice and patients’ personal preferences are reflected rhetorically in the interactions between patients and health professionals. However, they are negotiated within organizational logics and often overruled by competing demands.     

Interprofessional team building in the palliative home care setting: Use of a conceptual framework to inform a pilot evaluation

Home-based palliative care is increasingly dependent on interprofessional teams to deliver collaborative care that more adequately meets the needs of clients and families. The purpose of this pilot evaluation was to qualitatively explore the views of an interprofessional group of home care providers (occupational therapists, nurses, personal support work supervisors, community care coordinators, and a team coordinator) regarding a pilot project encouraging teamwork in interprofessional palliative home care services. We used qualitative methods, informed by an interprofessional conceptual framework, to analyse participants’ accounts and provide recommendations regarding strategies for interprofessional team building in palliative home health care. Findings suggest that encouraging practitioners to share past experiences and foster common goals for palliative care are important elements of team building in interprofessional palliative care. Also, establishing a team leader who emphasises sharing power among team members and addressing the need for mutual emotional support may help to maximise interprofessional teamwork in palliative home care. These findings may be used to develop and test more comprehensive efforts to promote stronger interprofessional teamwork in palliative home health care delivery.     

Interprofessional immersion: Use of interprofessional education collaborative competencies in side-by-side training of family medicine,pharmacy, nursing,and counselling psychology trainees

While supported by the Affordable Care Act, in the United States, interprofessional training often takes place after healthcare providers graduate and are practicing in the field. This article describes the implementation and evaluation of an interprofessional training for graduate-level healthcare trainees. A group of interprofessional healthcare faculty provided a weeklong interprofessional immersion for doctoral-level healthcare trainees (n = 24) in Pharmacy, Counselling Psychology, Nursing, and Family Medicine residents. Healthcare faculty and staff from each profession worked side-by-side to provide integrated training utilising the Interprofessional Education Collaborative core competency domains. Trainees were placed into small teams with representatives from each profession; each team observed, learned, and practiced working within teams to provide quality patient care. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected to identify the effect of the training on trainees’ self-reported team skills, as well as the extent to which the trainees learned and utilised the competencies. The results suggest that after completing the training, trainees felt more confident in their ability to work within an interprofessional team and more likely to utilise a team-based approach in the future.     

Exploring historical conflicts between midwives and nurses: a perspective from Chile

Abstract

This article explores issues of historical disputes between nurses and midwives based in Chile. The interaction of these two professions in that country has become an arena of competition which leads to conflicts periodically, such as those related to the ownership of the care of new-borns, and that of projects aimed at relieving nurse shortages by enhancing midwives’ nursing skills. Specifically, this article aims to build on historical and contemporary resources analysed from a sociological perspective, and present comparatively a rationale concerning nursing/midwifery jurisdictional conflicts through a social history account. Our analysis suggests that nurses/midwives interaction has been shaped by social-historical transformations and the continuous evolution of the healthcare system as a whole, resulting in a race towards technologisation. These interprofessional conflicts can be explained partly by mechanisms of boundary expansion within an organisational/interpretive domain, as well as varying degrees of medicalisation; and partly by a competition possibly originating from a middle-class consciousness. An eventual merger of the two professions might lead to the enhancement of the political power of the caring professions and integrated care.     

Interprofessional teamwork in comprehensive primary healthcare services: Findings from a mixed methods study

This article draws on data from a 5-year project that examined the effectiveness of Comprehensive primary healthcare (CPHC) in local communities. A hallmark of CPHC services is interprofessional teamwork. Drawing from this study, our article presents factors that enabled, or hindered, healthcare teams working interprofessionally in Australian primary healthcare (PHC) services. The article reports on the experiences of teams working in six Australian PHC services (four managed by state governments, one non-government sexual health organisation, and one Aboriginal community-controlled health service) during a time of significant health sector restructure. Findings are drawn from two key methods: an online survey of practitioners and managers (n = 154), and interviews with managers and practitioners (n = 60) from the six study sites. The majority of survey respondents worked with other health professionals in their service to provide interprofessional care to clients. Processes included formal team meetings, case conferencing, referring clients to other health professionals if needed, informal communication with other health professionals about clients, and team-based delivery of care. A range of interrelated factors affected interprofessional work at the services, from contextual, organisational, processual, and relational domains. Funding cuts and policy changes that saw a reorientation and re-medicalisation of South Australian services undermined interprofessional work, while a shared CPHC culture and commitment among some staff was helpful in resisting some of these effects. The co-location of services was a factor in PHC teams working interprofessionally and not only enabled some PHC teams to work more interprofessionally but also created barriers to interprofessional teamwork through disruption resulting from restructuring of services. Our study indicates the importance of decision makers taking into account the potential effects of policy and structural changes on interprofessional teamwork. Decision makers should strive to minimise unintended negative effects of changes on the functioning of interprofessional teams.     

The role of interprofessional collaboration for intimate partner violence in psychiatric care: A research and development project

In Finland, policy requirements have demanded providers to work collaboratively together with regard to intimate partner violence (IPV). This research and development project seeks to identify efficient tools for stopping IPV. The project included staff training to recognize and respond to IPV, the development of a research-based guideline for use in the care situations of victims and perpetrators and the integration of the guideline into practices and staff development. Networking was developed during the project through interprofessional and multiagency collaboration, whereas appraisal information was collected at different stages of the process. This paper focuses on the issues of interprofessional collaboration, and uses psychiatric care as an example. There is some evidence that interprofessional interventions reduce the cost of patient care and improve the quality of IPV services. That is why it is important to discuss these issues and solve possible problems arising in interprofessional patient care.     

Interprofessional collaboration between junior doctors and nurses in the general ward setting: A qualitative exploratory study

Aim

To explore the collaboration experiences of junior physicians and nurses in the general ward setting.

Background

Junior physicians and nurses do not always work collaboratively and this could affect the quality of patient care. The understanding of the issues affecting junior physicians and nurses working together is needed to inform strategies to improve interprofessional collaboration.

Methods

Nineteen junior physicians and nurses were interviewed in 2012 and 2013. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results

Junior physicians and nurses acknowledged the importance of working collaboratively to achieve better patient care, but they are struggling to cope due to heavy clinical workload, organisational constraints and differing power relationships. Nurses have to take on more responsibilities in the decision‐making process of patients’ care to foster effective interprofessional collaboration.

Conclusion

The study calls for educational and organisational strategies to improve interprofessional collaboration between junior physicians and nurses.

Implications for nursing management

Nurse leaders should ensure that ward nurses are given a designated time to participate in ward rounds with physicians and have access to a communication tool that assists them in contributing proactively in the decision‐making process of patient care.     

Interprofessional learning,impression management,and spontaneity in the acute healthcare setting

Spontaneous learning is integral to definitions of interprofessional learning (IPL) because it has been suggested that spontaneous learning can be deeply connected with the work that people do in collaboration with colleagues via their professional networks. However, its nature and the processes involved are not well understood. Goffman’s theory of impression management offers a useful theoretical framework to consider the way in which interaction in the workplace connects to spontaneous learning. This article explores the current literature to investigate the usefulness of this framework to better understand and identify spontaneous learning in the workplace. Aspects such as the connections between spontaneous learning occurring in formal and informal work activities, the spaces in which it occurs, and the influence of professional networking are considered. It is proposed that research directed to developing a better understanding of the nature of spontaneous learning in IPL will assist in connecting this learning to formal IPL curricula, enhancing IPL and patient outcomes     

Interprofessional relations: case studies of working relationships between Registered Nurses and general practitioners in rural Australia

Interprofessional working relationships of nurses and doctors have been discussed in the literature but are less frequently the subject of research. A review of international research on nurse-doctor professional relationships conducted over 30 years (1966-99) shows that the relationship is of interest predominantly to nurses. From a series of interviews with nurses and doctors, as part of a case study of four rural health services, harmonious working relationships between nurses and doctors were examined. Further analysis reveals many aspects of nurse-doctor relationships that are traditional and common across many contexts. There are, however, some aspects that are specific to the rural nature of the working context and relate well to contemporary advances in nursing knowledge and confidence.     

Chiropractor perceptions and practices regarding interprofessional service delivery in the Danish primary care context

Abstract

For the past 20 years, chiropractors have enjoyed access to the Danish health care system and have been free to build integrated health care delivery partnerships. An electronic survey of chiropractic clinics around Denmark was conducted in order to observe interprofessional practice trends. From the available population of 252 practices, 166 responses were received. Ninety-six percent of respondents considered inter-disciplinary/interprofessional practice to be either “very” or “extremely” important in the context of modern Danish health care. Three occupational groups appear to be commonly involved in practice alongside chiropractors, these being massage therapists (82%), physiotherapists (58%) and acupuncturists (37%). Interestingly only 11% considered a medical practitioner to be an active participant in their current interprofessional service delivery. Danish chiropractors consider interprofessional practice to be important and as a group, perceive themselves to be offering such models of service provision. Medical practitioners are perceived as desirable, but under utilized partners.