Forging partnerships in health care: Process and measuring benefits

Universally, there is concern that much academic learning has dealt mainly in theory, removing knowledge from context with a resultant lack of practical experience. Here, the catalyst for strengthening university-community engagement, emanated from a desire to foster greater propensity within students to make connections between their academic courses and responsibility toward the community and people in need, and thus develop enhanced skills in social interaction, teamwork and effectiveness. This paper explores a variety of models of university-community engagement that aim to achieve and model good practice in policy making and planning around healthcare education and service development. Ways of integrating teaching and learning with community engagement, so there is reciprocal learning with significant benefits to the community, students, the university and industry are described. The communities of engagement for a transdisciplinary approach in healthcare are defined and the types of collaborative partnerships are outlined, including public/private partnerships, service learning approaches and regional campus engagement. The processes for initiating innovation in this field, forging sustainable partnerships, providing cooperative leadership and building shared vision are detailed. Measuring shared and sustained benefits for all participants is examined in the context of effecting changes in working relationships as well as the impact on students in terms of increased personal and social responsibility, confidence and competence. For the health professions, it is considered vital to adopt this approach in order to deliver graduates who feel aware of community needs, believe they can make a difference, and have a greater sense of community responsibility, ethic of service and more sophisticated understandings of social contexts. In the longer term, it is proposed the strategy will deliver a future healthcare workforce that is more likely to have a strengthened sense of community, social and personal responsibility and thus effect positive social change

International and industry partnerships: Building nursing capacity in Thailand

A newly formed partnership between Edith Cowan University, the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand, a College of Nursing and two major hospitals in Bangkok is building capacity within Thai Nurses to manage mental health problems and HIV/AIDS. The partnership, funded through the AusAID Public Sector Linkages Program is developing and delivering these training programs in three phases. The first two phases support the development of the curriculum and planning for the course delivery, with Phase 3 being the delivery of a four month certificate course in each of the specialist areas, mental health and HIV/AIDS, to local Thai Nurses. The program provides the opportunity for senior Thai Nurse Educators to gain insight into the Australian perspective of the relevant specialist areas as well as the broader Australian health system. Participants have then been able to review the course curricula and teaching methodologies, including additional and revised information and strategies as is relevant to the Thai health environment. An integral component of the program is evaluation. Following completion of the courses, nurses will be followed up on return to their workplace, to assess the impact of the course on the work practices of nurses. The program evaluation will support better understanding of emerging issues for all program partners and provide a strong basis for refinement of the program for future delivery. At the time of the ECU-COM 2006 conference, the program will be at the stage where the Thai nurses are completing the four month course. This paper will discuss the progress of the program to date, from the perspective of the Australian program partner