INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
Beginning In 2010, I was responsible for leading and advancing Interprofessional Education at North York General Hospital in collaboration with Susan Woollard, the Director of Professional Practice. We decided that the best way to lead this change was buld capacity amongst the staff and physicians at NYGH. An interprofessional team from the hospital (including myself), enrolled in the 5 day program at the University of Toronto called "ehpic" "Educating Health Professionals in Interprofessional Care". From this course we developed a novel interprofessional education teacher development program called "iPed" - "Interprofessional Education Development". We have run the course for 5 years reaching many staff and physicians and subsequently building a more robust Interprofessional Education Program for students.
We evaluated the first iteration of the program resulting in a number of oral and poster presentations at national and international conferences and a publication in 2014 in the Journal of Interprofessional Care.
Interprofessional Education Faculty Development
Purpose
We developed and implemented a longitudinal interprofessional education teacher development program at a large community teaching hospital in Toronto, Canada to begin the process of organizational change in interprofessional education. The purpose of this study was to describe participants’ commitments to change and their perceived barriers to implementing these changes following participation in a 4-session program on interprofessional education development.
Methods
The program consisted of four 90 minute workshops over 4 consecutive months. The goals of the program were to raise awareness and foster positive attitudes in IPE, address barriers and challenges in IPE and develop competencies in IPE facilitation. At the end of each session, participants were asked to (1) “write 1 thing down that they would do different as a result of the workshop”, (2) list barriers that may be associated with this change item and (3) what it will take to overcome these barriers. After the last workshop, participants that consented, provided their “commitment to change” table. The data was transcribed and grouped according to themes.
Results
24 health professionals from 9 different professions registered and attended the workshops. 15 participants attended at least 3 sessions with 10 of these consenting to participate. Common themes of commitment to change included; learning about other professions/roles, using reflection in practice and teaching, focusing on team building and addressing conflict resolution.
Conclusions
We describe individual’s “commitment to change” and barriers to implementing these changes following a longitudinal program on interprofessional education development at a community teaching hospital.