Search

Integrated working can be a means of providing efficient and cost-effective care, which benefits both service users and health professionals. However, it does require readiness of practitioners to work in new and innovative ways to achieve integration. This paper describes the findings of a qualitative study exploring the nature of practice-based education and training underpinning successful integrated care teams using an ecological systems theory lens. Nine teams in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom (UK) participated in this study. A total of 27 participants were involved in semi-structured interviews during which they shared their views and experiences of learning in practice. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts highlighted the shifting context of working in integrated teams impacting on learning, the influence of leadership on education and training, the nature of in-service training, and the knowledge-sharing culture. The findings highlight that the learning climate is highly dependent on the leadership ethos in the practice context, which influences the allocation of time and resources for training and clinical supervision. Whilst formal education and training has an important role to play in fostering integrated working, informal learning is pivotal to successful integration and potentially has greater impact making it worthy of further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the time of COVID-19, universities have been forced to engage with online learning more than ever before. The facilitator is a key player in the orchestration of online learning and as such, this paper seeks to present a radical reworking of the Garrison and Archer Community of Inquiry model that emphasizes the importance of a therapeutic presence in online interprofessional facilitation. Drawn from a strand of inductive empirical qualitative research based on 15 years' experience of online interprofessional education, this paper employs a therapeutic lens to propose the good enough facilitator as a theoretical construct that emphasizes the importance of the facilitator understanding when to intervene and when to retreat within the online space. Online interprofessional asynchronous discussion groups are explored to illustrate the value of the good enough facilitator in online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role does social media play for interprofessional education in a pandemic? This is the first pandemic to occur in a world filled with social media, where digital communication is ubiquitous and a high percentage of those affected are digitally literate. This paper situated within a United Kingdom (UK) context explores this new phenomenon, discussing the ways in which digital gift giving toward health and social care professionals has developed on a variety of social media platforms. This discussion proposes a theoretical understanding of digital gift giving and raises the importance of digital resilience for interprofessional learning and working. Reflections are made on the expected and imagined reciprocity of digital gift giving and the talismanic nature of employing symbols digitally to ward off COVID-19. This paper employs an ethnographic lens to unpack the issue of digital gift giving and recommends preparing students for the onslaught of digital gifts they may be exposed to upon entering the workplace. Academics are called on as the mediators of these recommendations, and suggestions are made as to how students can be best prepared for a digitally saturated interprofessional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article relates the findings of a discourse analysis of an online asynchronous interprofessional learning initiative involving two UK universities. The impact of the initiative is traced over three intensive periods of online interaction, each of several-weeks duration occurring over a three-year period, through an analysis of a random sample of discussion forum threads. The corpus of rich data drawn from the forums is interpreted using ecological systems theory, which highlights the complexity of interaction of individual, social and cultural elements. Ecological systems theory adopts a life course approach to understand how development occurs through processes of progressively more complex reciprocal interaction between people and their environment. This lens provides a novel approach for analysis and interpretation of findings with respect to the impact of pre-registration interprofessional education and the interaction between the individual and their social and cultural contexts as they progress through 3/4 years of their programmes. Development is mapped over time (the chronosystem) to highlight the complexity of interaction across microsystems (individual), mesosystems (curriculum and institutional/care settings), exosystems (community/wider local context), and macrosystems (national context and culture). This article illustrates the intricacies of students’ interprofessional development over time and the interactive effects of social ecological components in terms of professional knowledge and understanding, wider appreciation of health and social care culture and identity work. The implications for contemporary pre-registration interprofessional education and the usefulness and applicability of ecological systems theory for future research and development are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is concerned with identifying ways of facilitating 'meaningful disagreement' amongst students in interprofessional online discussion forums. It builds on previous research that identified a trend toward polite agreement and only limited evidence of disagreement in this setting. Given the suggestion that disagreement indicates a deeper level of engagement in group discussion and therefore leads to deeper learning, our aim was to critique the pedagogical approach adopted by analyzing whether we were promoting a particular interprofessional discourse amongst students that favored agreement and therefore limited potential learning. Agreement in this context has been conceptualized as a form of online interprofessional 'netiquette' existing amongst participants. Findings suggest that creating an online context for critical discourse is challenging; however, the careful construction of learning outcomes, trigger material/resources and learning activities, as well as attention to students' stage of study and life experience, can provoke the desired effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests that ''agreement'' is a predominant feature of online discussions amongst undergraduate health and social care professionals, which is an area of concern. The context for the research is an online interprofessional learning pathway completed by ∼∼2,800 students each year. The concept of agreement, how and why it is reached and what it indicates in an online interprofessional group is examined. The underpinning educational rationale for instigating online interprofessional dialogue was the potential to provide a powerful interface for bringing together students across a wide range of professional groups, which is necessary to promote interprofessional learning. Discourse analysis was used to analyze digital texts of interaction in online forums. The discussion forum discourse shows evidence of increased interprofessional knowledge and understanding, as well as capacity for interprofessional dialogue. Discussions were largely characterized by agreement, although some disagreement was evident. These findings support previous research in online dialogue. However, they are interpreted in an interprofessional context as constituting a specific type of ''netiquette'' in relation to the participants and their identification with professional discourses and to the learning activities that shaped discussions. The research has significance for teachers, researchers, and practitioners involved in promoting interprofessional learning through online discussion forums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]