Search

Inter-professional education has been identified as a core theoretical pillar for improving learners’ non-technical skills (NTS) and consequently promoting safe patient handover in clinical practice. However, specific handover education, especially in an authentic interprofessional fashion, is rare. Contributing factors include pragmatic and logistical elements, which can potentially be addressed through virtual delivery. We developed a virtual inter-professional handover education programme for undergraduate healthcare students, based on a classroom-based version that we designed and piloted previously. The workshop used interactive large and small group activities to develop understanding of the reasons for poor handover, its implications for patient safety and the skills to undertake structured, focused handover. It specifically included exercises which emphasised the differences between single-profession and interprofessional handover and how miscommunication may arise and lead to errors. The workshop was delivered using Blackboard Learn, Microsoft Teams (version 12) and Vevox (November 2021 version) and based on materials which are readily available in the public domain. 37 students from four professions attended the workshop, which was evaluated using both in-workshop assessment and formal research elements. Handover knowledge and skills, attitudes towards inter-professional handover and confidence in giving and receiving handover increased following the workshop; in addition, students enjoyed taking part and were keen to apply their learning in practice. Content analysis of individual interviews also provides insights into how and why students learned and suggests that the underpinning SECTORS model is appropriate for explaining NTS acquisition in theoretical learning settings, as well as practice. Workshop delivery was both cost and resource effective.

Background: Clinical placements are an essential part of student nurse education, but their effectiveness is influenced by the type and availability of supervision and existing resources. In Sri Lanka, the specific socio-political context in which nursing, and nurse education, operate may also be important. Objectives: To examine the impact of socio-political factors on Sri Lankan nurses’ supervisory practices and student nurses’ experiences of clinical supervision Design: Qualitative descriptive. Settings: Four teaching hospitals and four educational establishments in Colombo district, Sri Lanka. Participants: 217 student nurses in years 2-4 of their programmes. 205 qualified nurses (clinical and academic) with a minimum of two years’ supervisory experience. Methods: Written responses to three open questions, followed by reflexive thematic analysis with inductive, semantic coding. Results: Two themes were identified: 1. Personal and professional development 2. Tensions and conflicts. Sociocultural norms and governance structures, which limited nurses’ professional recognition and self-determination, negatively affected clinical supervision. Conclusions: The sociocultural changes necessary to raise the professional status of Sri Lankan nurses will take time to occur. Approval of a mentorship education programme for supervisors, recognition of their role and greater support for students are important first steps in this process.

Background Large discrepancies exist between standards of healthcare provision in high-income (HICs) and low and middle-income countries (LMICs). The root cause is often financial, resulting in poor infrastructure and under-resourced education and healthcare systems. Continuing professional education (CPE) programmes improve staff knowledge, skills, retention, and practice, but remain costly and rare in low-resource settings. One potential solution involves healthcare education collaborations between institutions in HICs and LMICs to provide culturally appropriate CPE in LMICs. To be effective, educational partnerships must address the challenges arising from differences in cultural norms, language, available technology and organisational structures within collaborating countries. Methods Seven databases and other sources were systematically searched on 7 July 2020 for relevant studies. Citations, abstracts, and studies were screened and consensus was reached on which to include within the review. 54 studies were assessed regarding the type of educational programme involved, the nature of HIC/LMIC collaboration and quality of the study design. Results Studies varied greatly regarding the types and numbers of healthcare professionals involved, pedagogical and delivery methods, and the ways in which collaboration was undertaken. Barriers and enablers of collaboration were identified and discussed. The key findings were: 1. The methodological quality of reporting in the studies was generally poor. 2. The way in which HIC/LMIC healthcare education collaboration is undertaken varies according to many factors, including what is to be delivered, the learner group, the context, and the resources available. 3. Western bias was a major barrier. 4. The key to developing successful collaborations was the quality, nature, and duration of the relationships between those involved. Conclusion This review provides insights into factors that underpin successful HIC/LMIC healthcare CP

As healthcare increases in complexity there is growing awareness that interprofessional teamwork underpins safe and effective care delivery. However, in order to collaborate in interprofessional teams, health professionals must also train in them. Despite increasing interest in IPE amongst healthcare educators, and positive comments from students, barriers to its implementation remain. The authors of this article come from different healthcare professions and have overcome the challenges of developing IPE to devise several successful activities. This article outlines the educational benefits of IPE and provides guidance for surmounting obstacles to its implementation, supported by examples from our own experience.

Poor standards of handover threaten patient safety and continuity of care, contributing significantly to morbidity and mortality. Handover practices has risen to the forefront of the patient safety agenda, with a call to develop and implement undergraduate handover modules into undergraduate healthcare education. Recent systematic reviews demonstrate a common failure of educational interventions to demonstrate a theoretical and pedagogical framework underpinning the delivery of education and method of assessment. The authors developed and piloted a multi-disciplinary evidence-based undergraduate handover training program to health care students studying at a UK university. The intervention was designed based on underpinning educational theories. It has been developed in a manner that supports dissemination and replication, with a model that is cost effective. The intervention was designed to assess learner reaction, attitudes and confidence, and knowledge and skills. This was achieved through a pre- and post-intervention attitude questionnaire, and an externally validated pre- and postintervention knowledge assessment. 46 undergraduate students participated, with a statistically significant increase in self-reported attitudes (p < 0.001) and knowledge (p < 0.001) following the handover intervention. Students participated from the disciplines of medicine, adult nursing, pharmacy, mental health nursing, paramedic practice and operating department practioners. This intervention serves as a significant resource for those looking to develop local interventions and stands as a truly multi-disciplinary approach to handover education, mirroring the clinical reality. The introduction of this handover intervention immediately improves the attitudes, knowledge and skills of undergraduate healthcare students. Future work should sample beyond the selected 6 professions, investigating the transference of outcomes to the workplace, as well as the impact on patient safety.

The exponential growth of the systematic review methodology within health has been mirrored within medical education, allowing large numbers of publications on a topic to be synthesized to guide researchers and teachers. The robust, transparent and reproducible search methodologies employed offer scholarly rigor. The scope and scale of many reviews in education have only been matched by the size of the commitment needed to complete them and occasional lack of utility of reports. As such, we have noticed a growth in reviews across journals in the field that have questions that are more focused in scope. The authors propose 12 tips for performing a focused review in the right settings for the right reasons and discuss why such “focused reviews” may be more beneficial in those circumstances. Focused reviews allow researchers to formulate answers to specific local issues that have explicit utility of findings. Such reviews are equipped to identify what works for specific groups in specific circumstances and even question how and why this may occur. An additional impact of a focused approach can be a rapid turnaround. This article explains the purpose and benefits of focused review and provides guidance on how to produce them.

Effective handovers (handoffs) are vital to patient safety. Educational interventions to improve handovers were previously investigated through a systematic review in 2010.1 The number of publications on handover education has increased substantially in recent years, so an update review was undertaken. Studies involving educational interventions to improve handover amongst undergraduate or postgraduate health professionals in acute care settings were considered. A standardized search of online databases was carried out independently by two authors and consensus reached. Data extraction and quality assessment were also completed independently, after which a content analysis of interventions was conducted and key themes extracted. Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria, with all but two based in the US. Interventions most commonly used single-patient exercises based on simulation and role-play. Many discussed multi-professional working, but were largely taught in single professional contexts. Analysis of interventions revealed themes in three major areas: facilitating information management, reducing the potential for errors and improving confidence in participating in handovers. The majority of studies assessed Kirkpatrick’s outcomes of knowledge and skill improvement. The strength of conclusions was generally weak. Despite increased interest and publications on handover, the quality of published research remains poor. Inadequate reporting of interventions, especially as it relates to educational theory, pedagogy, curricula, and resource requirements, continues to impede replication. Weaknesses in quality of study, length of follow up and scope of impact evaluation persist. Future work is vital to address these issues, and to consider the role of multi-professional and multi-patient handovers.

A collection from the principal records in the "archives" of Graham Balcombe on the events leading to the foundation of the Cave Dving Group and notebook records of the early "ops." in which he took part.

This article advances a heuristic for conceptual instruction, based on the yoked‐state space (YSS) hypothesis about the contents of users’ device models (Payne, 1987a; Payne, Squibb, & Howes, 1990). The YSS hypothesis suggests that users of a system need to understand the system's representation of the task domain. Accordingly, conceptual instructions should express the mapping from device objects onto goal‐space objects, especially those aspects that are not visible at the user interface. Such instructions are developed for a menu‐driven computer system based on the RATES system for performing remote diagnosis of telephone lines. A simple comparative experiment shows that novices who receive these instructions learn to use RATES more quickly than novices who receive only background instruction and a brief procedural manual. These results increase empirical support for the YSS hypothesis, and, at the same time, suggest a heuristic for the design of conceptual instructions.