Interprofessional Skills Training: why bother

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Interprofessional Skills Training why bother?
Maggie Nicol Professor of Clinical Skills CETL
Director City University London
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Interprofessional education why bother?

• Large numbers of students, different numbers of
  intakes and different length courses
• Students often in different universities on
  several different campuses
• Timetables already full of uniprofessional
  content
• There is little research evidence for the
  effectiveness of IPE.
• Uniprofessional education has produced successful
  healthcare professional for years!

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The UK context

• Blurring of professional boundaries
• Specialisation means there is a pressing
  requirement for professionals to work together
  in cohesive teams (Tunstall-Pedoe et al, 2003)
• Care provision needs to be joined up to ensure
  quality patient care and best use of resources
• Patient safety depends on good communication and
  teamwork

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Centre for Excellence in Teaching Learning
(CETL) Clinical Communication Skills

• 3.15 million over 5 years
• Healthcare students at City University London
  Queen Mary, University of London
• Four aims
• Enhance the student experience
• Create an expert interprofessional faculty
• Engage with the NHS
• Evaluate learning methods and materials and
  disseminate good practice

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Centre for Excellence in Teaching Learning
(CETL) Clinical Communication Skills

• 3.15 million over 5 years
• Healthcare students at City University London
  Queen Mary, University of London
• Four aims
• Enhance the student experience
• Create an expert interprofessional faculty
• Engage with the NHS
• Evaluate learning methods and materials and
  disseminate good practice

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Benefits of interprofessional collaboration

• Almost everyone who seeks healthcare interacts
  with more than one professional
• Few skills are the sole preserve of one
  profession
• Shared, evidence-based ways of working regardless
  of which professional is performing the skill
• Shared Skills Centre provides safe environment to
  explore our differences similarities

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Benefits of interprofessional collaboration

• Role model IP working
• Makes the patient the focus rather than the
  professional
• Helps us understand each others work practices
• Students develop negative attitudes before even
  meeting other professionals from views
  expressed by tutors and clinicians (Leaviss,
  2000)

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Hierarchy of Needs for InterprofessionalCollabor
ation
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What is Interprofessional Education?

• Occasions when two or more professionals learn
  with, from and about each other to facilitate
  collaboration in practice (CAIPE, 1997)
• Effective IPE demands a togetherness that is
  complex and controversial (Hammick 2003)
• Since by definition IPE occurs outside the usual
  professional boundaries, it must be supported by
  strong representatives from each of the
  professions involved (Headrick et al 1998 773)
• If we assume that professional education prepares
  us for professional practice can we not equally
  assume that IPE will prepare us for
  interprofessional practice?
• Clinical skills are a logical focus for
  interprofessional education

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What is Interprofessional Education?

• the aim of interprofessional education is not to
  produce khaki-brown generic workers, its goal is
  better described by the metaphor of a richly
  coloured tapestry within which many colours are
  interwoven to create a picture that no one colour
  can produce on its own(Headrick et al 1998
  772)

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Benefits of interprofessional skills training

• Few skills are the sole preserve of one
  profession
• Opportunities for sharing facilities (and costs)
  and developing shared learning materials
• Share each others ways of working to promote
  understanding
• Most skills require at least two lecturers
  therefore co-tutoring no more expensive
• But

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Interprofessional skills training

• Successful IPE requires the same infrastructure
  as uniprofessional education
• How can we expect IPE to be successful with just
  a few enthusiasts trying to make it happen?

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IPE how do we get there?

• Academics working together
• Have clear learning outcomes for IPE and design
  the activity to achieve them
• Medium and high fidelity simulators provide
  realistic simulations that require teamwork,
  decision making and communication
• Recognise that uniprofessional education is
  probably more efficient for learning individual
  skills

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IPE how do we get there?

• Clinical placements also provide opportunities to
  learn with and from other professionals
• Make IPE part of the assessment strategy so that
  it is valued
• Provide IPE as preparation for exams/OSCEs
• Mobile Clinical Skills Unit provides a neutral
  territory to bring different professions
  together

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Interprofessional skills training why bother?

• Because
• we have to!
• effective teamwork is vital for effective care
• collaboration with other professions makes
  sense
• if we dont we will have missed a valuable
  opportunity to really make a difference to
  patient care and patient safety

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Maggie Nicol maggie.nicol.1_at_city.ac.uk www.cetl.or
g.uk
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References

• Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional
  Education (1997) Interprofessional education a
  definition. London CAIPE
• Headrick L A Wilcock P M Batalden P B (1998)
  Inter-professional working and continuing medical
  education. BMJ, 316 771-774.
• Leaviss, J. (2000) Exploring the perceived effect
  of an undergraduate multiprofessional educational
  intervention. Medical Education, 34 (6) 483-486
• Tunstall-Pedoe S Rink E Hilton S (2003)
  Student attitudes to undergraduate
  interprofessional education. Journal of
  Interprofessional Care, 17 (2) 161-172.