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The Aberdeen Interprofessional Health and Social Care Education Initiative - Final Report
June 2008
Shared Learning Steering Group members
The Robert Gordon University and University of Aberdeen
Dr Michael Gibson (Interprofessional Education Research Fellow)
School of Pharmacy & Life Sciences, The Robert Gordon University
Dr Lesley Diack (Principal Investigator)
Professor Terry Healey
School of Medicine, University of Aberdeen
Professor Christine Bond
Professor Hamish McKenzie
Correspondence to: Dr Lesley Diack, School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, The Robert Gordon University, Schoolhill Aberdeen, AB10 1FR h.l.diack@rgu.ac.uk
Contents
The report is also available in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format by clicking the link below.
The three year project detailed in this report was funded by the Scottish Government Health Department and the findings enclosed within this report will be circulated to the Scottish Government, other relevant stakeholders and organisations.
The aim of this project, the Aberdeen Interprofessional Health and Social Care Education initiative, was to develop and deliver a common shared learning programme, as and where appropriate, to undergraduate and professional qualifying courses in medicine at the University of Aberdeen and pharmacy at The Robert Gordon University (RGU) and also to other heath and social care students within the Faculty of Health and Social Care at RGU.
The strategic objectives of the project were:
- The identification and development of a number of courses/module suitable for shared learning
- The establishment of these courses within the curricula at both universities.
- The development of a shared/common assessment programme on shared learning
- The establishment of a model capable of extension to other common shared learning programmes
The first section of the report provides a brief overview of interprofessional education, referring to recent changes in terminology and highlighting that the Aberdeen Interprofessional Education initiative is based on the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education’s definition: “Occasions when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care.”
The report then provides an overview of the interprofessional education and shared learning across which now takes place across the five Schools and ten undergraduate health and social care courses at the two universities in Aberdeen. It provides in-depth detail of selected high profile interprofessional courses which have been developed, delivered to over 7000 students since 2003 and evaluated during this project. The developments detailed are at each of the four stages of the undergraduate degrees with the first two years including large scale workshops with all students from all health and social care courses taking part. At the later stages of the development and evaluation of more subject-specific courses are detailed as logistics, resources and relevance limit the appropriateness of such larger scale learning events at this stage of training.
The key findings of the evaluations for each of these developments are detailed along with, where appropriate relevant statistics from questionnaires employed and supporting quote. Across all courses detailed the overwhelming majority of students appreciated the opportunity to work together and stated that they found the learning experiences useful in terms of understanding the roles of other professionals and the importance of interprofessional communication. Data obtained from questionnaires support this favourable attitude towards interprofessional learning and its perceived benefits however significant differences are noted between responses from students at the early and later stages of their courses when they have experienced no previous interprofessional learning. This section of the report also discusses the development of a dedicated web site for the project and how this has been used to disseminate findings relevant to the project as well as providing information to students relating to upcoming interprofessional learning and collecting evaluation and feedback data.
The third section of the report provides an overview of the development and evaluation of the interprofessional education facilitation workshops which have run in parallel with the learning opportunities. These sessions have run five times and have been attended by over fifty staff from across all courses involved in the project as well as by practice-based staff. Like the learning developments outlined in the previous section the facilitator training workshops have received very positive feedback from delegates. It is planned to continue to run these sessions alongside the other interprofessional content outlined elsewhere in the report.
This report then provides an overview of the Higher Education Academy “Assessing Interprofessional Learning” workshop which was co-hosted by The Robert Gordon University and the University of Aberdeen. During this event in November 2006 it was formally agreed to establish a Scottish Interprofessional Education Special Interest Group. The development and role of the group is discussed in the second part of this section of the report.
The report outlines where the findings of the initiative have been presented, the development and purpose of the Aberdeen interprofessional education website and an overview of where this report will be circulated. A full list of events where the developments and evaluation of this initiative have been presented is included in the Appendices of the document.
This project has demonstrated the feasibility of an integrated interprofessional education programme across all areas health and social care education in Aberdeen. Where logistically achievable these courses have now been embedded into the curricula and new IPE modules will continue to be developed, evaluated and embedded both in classroom and practice-based settings. Interprofessional education will remain a high priority for both the School of Medicine ( University of Aberdeen) and the Faculty of Health and Social Care (The Robert Gordon University) and this will continue to be reflected across the Health and Social Care curricula.
There are many opportunities for interprofessional training at a postgraduate level and it is hoped that the program can develop and further expand the existing interprofessional teaching at this level in parallel with the current undergraduate project. This will provide continuous exposure to the issues associated with multidisciplinary working and ensure that the importance of interprofessional teamwork within health and social care is highlighted at all levels of training.
The Aberdeen Interprofessional Education project will continue to reflect the professional guidelines and drivers for IPE throughout the health and social care systems in Scotland and the UK. We will continue to centrally review existing and new developments locally, nationally and internationally to ensure that our courses are in line with current best practice for the benefit of students, staff, patients and service users and carers.
The project has provided the foundation for integrated interprofessional education in the area of health and social care in Aberdeen. With continued support, this foundation will be built upon to ensure that the benefits of increased understanding and appreciation of the multidisciplinary teamwork involved in health and social care services throughout Scotland are maximised.
Go to Chapter 1: Introduction to the Aberdeen Interprofessional Education initiative
