What Works in Rural Interprofessional Practice and Education? A Study of Student Reflections

Background: Team-based care has been proposed as a way to utilize rural healthcare resources wisely. Thus, the need to educate healthcare profession students in the fundamentals of rural team-based practice has increased in recent years. Thisstudy sought to examine student reflections of a rural interprofessional practice and education (IPE) program in an effort to learn how students described their experience and what they valued. Methods and findings: Student reflection journals from a formal rural IPE program were examined for themes related to post-experience values, attitudes, and beliefs. In general, the time spent in rural IPE led to understanding what it means to live and provide care as a team to a rural community. One important new discovery is that social interactions outside formal IPE curriculum are central to achieving programmatic goals. Conclusion: Understanding the significance of rural IPE and how to guide students both inside and outside the clinical setting will help lead the development of future IPE. The findings of this study shed light on what students valued in a rural IPE experience and, thus, have implications for where institutional resources should be concentrated

How partnerships for community-based health professions training were affected by national changes in funding

Background: Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) have contributed to U.S. healthcare workforce training since 1971. National funders recently refocused efforts from K-12 students to matriculated health profession students, which reduced annual funding by $75,000 (25%) per year per Center. Objectives: To describe how community partnership changed due to funding reductions. Methods: Key informant interviews were conducted with all four regional center directors with community partnerships. Lessons learned: Hosted regional centers navigated partnerships in ways that did not significantly change programs because the host institutions supported continuing the partnerships. Independent centers experienced significant changes in partnerships by ending well-established programs and starting new programs with new partners. Both hosted and independent centers took salary cuts, downsized staff, and applied for grants and contracts to fill the funding gap. Improved communication with the Oregon AHEC program office was reported as needed. Conclusions: Navigating partnerships differed according to host status

Economic models for sustainable interprofessional education

Limited information exists on funding models for interprofessional education (IPE) course delivery, even though potential savings from IPE could be gained in healthcare delivery efficiencies and patient safety. Unanticipated economic barriers to implementing an IPE curriculum across programs and schools in University settings can stymie or even end movement toward collaboration and sustainable culture change. Clarity among stakeholders, including institutional leadership, faculty, and students, is necessary to avoid confusion about IPE tuition costs and funds flow, given that IPE involves multiple schools and programs sharing space, time, faculty, and tuition dollars. In this paper, we consider three funding models for IPE: (a) Centralized (b) Blended, and (c) Decentralized. The strengths and challenges associated with each of these models are discussed. Beginning such a discussion will move us toward understanding the return on investment of IPE

Rural Interprofessional Health Care Education: a Study of Student Perspectives

As the cost for health care delivery increases, so does the demand for access to care. However, individuals in a rural community often do not have access to the care they need. Shortages of rural health care professionals are an ever-increasing problem. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 sought to increase health care access by focusing on team-based care delivery. Thus, the need to educate health care students in the fundamentals of team-based practice has led to an increased emphasis on Interprofessional Education (IPE). While past research focused on urban IPE, a literature gap exists for the effects of a rural team-based educational experience on practice location decisions. This study examined how rural IPE influenced health profession students\u27 perspectives of what it means to be a member of a rural health care team and explored what factors go into making decisions of where to live and provide care. Motivational Theory provided the framework for a mixed methods approach with data from student reflective journaling and a post-experience Q sort. Analysis yielded important understandings about the impact of rural IPE. Accordingly, having a rural IPE experience provided positive motivation for returning after graduation. Further, the time spent in rural IPE generated understandings of what it means to live and provide care to a rural community. One important new discovery gained is the clinical setting is not where most IPE took place. As a result, social interactions with fellow students and community members achieved the goals of rural IPE. Despite these influential findings, noted barriers to genuine rural IPE persisted. In the end, students, educators, and rural health care professionals need to be aware of the multiple factors that guide decisions of where to live and provide care

What Works in Rural IPE? A Study of Student Reflections

Background: Team-based care has been proposed as a way to utilize rural healthcare resources wisely. Thus, the need to educate healthcare profession students in the fundamentals of rural team-based practice has increased in recent years. Thisstudy  sought to examine student reflections of a rural interprofessional practice and education (IPE) program in an effort to learn how students described their experience and what they valued.Methods and findings: Student reflection journals from a formal rural IPE program were examined for themes related to post-experience values, attitudes, and beliefs. In general, the time spent in rural IPE led to understanding what it means to live and provide care as a team to a rural community. One important new discovery is that social interactions outside formal IPE curriculum are central to achieving programmatic goals.Conclusion: Understanding the significance of rural IPE and how to guide students both inside and outside the clinical setting will help lead the development of future IPE. The findings of this study shed light on what students valued in a rural IPE experience and, thus, have implications for where institutional resources should be concentrated

Development of a Longitudinal Curricular Evaluation Framework for Intra- and Interprofessional Teamwork

Objectives: To describe the development and evaluation of a university-wide competency and evaluation framework for intra- and interprofessional education (IPE) teamwork.Methods: Development of the framework was based on existing literature and specific contexts of the schools within our university. Evaluation and program alignment regarding use of the framework were achieved through qualitative interviews with deans of the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, and focused on how they evaluated student progression towards the university-wide teamwork competency. Interview data were analyzed using classical content analysis.Results: Despite efforts to carefully design the framework, interviews revealed that significant variation exists regarding when and how both IPE and team-based care are taught and evaluated across schools. Common barriers to interprofessional education included variations in teamwork practices across disciplines, scheduling challenges, and lack of resources for implementation. Recommendations for how to align teaching and evaluation activities with the framework are posed.Conclusions: Longitudinally tracking the development of interprofessional competencies within/across health professions schools requires careful planning and collaboration among institutional leaders, interprofessional educators, program evaluators, and students. The information gained from this process provides insights toward implementing future high-quality IPE in teamwork and other inter- and intraprofessional competencies, which may be helpful to others