scholarly journals Birley Place: a virtual community for the delivery of health and social care education

2021 ◽  
pp. bmjstel-2020-000849
Author(s):  
David J Wright ◽  
Leah Greene ◽  
Kirsten Jack ◽  
Eleanor Hannan ◽  
Claire Hamshire

Virtual simulation can provide high-quality learning experiences through innovative and engaging activities while also overcoming some of the constraints associated with physical simulation. We developed a virtual community, called Birley Place, to facilitate simulation-based learning activities. Adopting a novel approach, we modelled the virtual community on the large metropolitan city in which our institution is based. Publicly available health and population data were used to ensure that the homes, businesses and services in the community were representative of distinct socioeconomic areas of our city. The residents of the virtual community were also matched with the real-world areas based on health and lifestyle data. Our virtual community is used to facilitate learning activities across our health and social care degree programmes. In this article, we summarise how we developed Birley Place, before providing one example of how it is used to facilitate the delivery of a large-scale interprofessional education project. Birley Place is an innovative tool for delivering online and virtual simulation. The use of this virtual community facilitates learners’ understanding of the connection between settings and health status.

Author(s):  
Sachiko Ogawa ◽  
Yoshinori Takahashi ◽  
Misako Miyazaki

Background: Although interprofessional education (IPE) has come to be considered essential in health and social care education programs, most IPE programs in Japan focus on clinical settings. However, following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, IPE programs are considered essential for community development, especially in disaster-affected areas. To identify key issues for the development of IPE, we aimed to clarify the current status of IPE programs and problems in their implementation using an original questionnaire. Methods and Findings: The targets were 865 undergraduate courses that qualify students to take national registered health/social care examinations. Effective responses were received from 284 targets. Of these 284 respondents, 103 respondents had already implemented an IPE program and 181 respondents had not. Among the 103 respondents who had already implemented an IPE program, we found a tendency to collaborate with partners in clinical settings or in social settings. Furthermore, respondents who had implemented or were planning to implement an IPE program had difficulty with ‘interdisciplinary and/or extramural collaboration’ and ‘educational factors’. Conclusions: These difficulties could be considered barriers to developing effective IPE programs for community-based collaboration between health and social care professionals. Future research should investigate more specific solutions to these problems.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Noone ◽  
Alison Branch ◽  
Melissa Sherring

Purpose Positive behavioural support (PBS) as a framework for delivering quality services is recognised in important policy documents (CQC, 2020; NICE, 2018), yet there is an absence in the literature on how this could be implemented on a large scale. The purpose of this paper is to describe a recent implementation of a workforce strategy to develop PBS across social care and health staff and family carers, within the footprint of a large integrated care system. Design/methodology/approach A logic model describes how an initial scoping exercise led to the production of a regional workforce strategy based on the PBS Competence Framework (2015). It shows how the creation of a regional steering group was able to coordinate important developmental stages and integrate multiple agencies into a single strategy to implement teaching and education in PBS. It describes the number of people who received teaching and education in PBS and the regional impact of the project in promoting cultural change within services. Findings This paper demonstrates a proof of concept that it is possible to translate the PBS Competency Framework (2015) into accredited courses. Initial scoping work highlighted the ineffectiveness of traditional training in PBS. Using blended learning and competency-based supervision and assessment, it was possible to create a new way to promote large-scale service developments in PBS supported by the governance of a new organisational structure. This also included family training delivered by family trainers. This builds on the ideas by Denne et al. (2020) that many of the necessary building blocks of implementation already exist within a system. Social implications A co-ordinated teaching and education strategy in PBS may help a wide range of carers to become more effective in supporting the people they care for. Originality/value This is the first attempt to describe the implementation of a framework for PBS within a defined geographical location. It describes the collaboration of health and social care planners and a local university to create a suite of courses built around the PBS coalition competency framework.


Author(s):  
Maonolis Tsiknakis

This chapter provides an overview and discussion of virtual communities in health and social care. The available literature indicates that a virtual community in health or social care can be defined as a group of people using telecommunications with the purposes of delivering health care and education, and/or providing support. Such communities cover a wide range of clinical specialties, technologies and stakeholders. Examples include peer-to-peer networks, virtual health care delivery and E-Science research teams. Virtual communities may empower patients and enhance coordination of care services; however, there is not sufficient systematic evidence of the effectiveness of virtual communities on clinical outcomes. When practitioners utilize virtual community tools to communicate with patients or colleagues they have to maximize sociability and usability of this mode of communication, while addressing concerns for privacy and the fear of de-humanizing practice, and the lack of clarity or relevance of current legislative frameworks. Furthermore, the authors discuss in this context ethical, legal considerations and the current status of research in this domain. Ethical challenges including the concepts of identity and deception, privacy and confidentiality and technical issues, such as sociability and usability are introduced and discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S47-S47
Author(s):  
Linda C Smit ◽  
Jeroen Dikken ◽  
Nienke M Moolenaar ◽  
Marieke J Schuurmans ◽  
Niek J De Wit ◽  
...  

Abstract Effective, safe, person-centred care relies on skilled interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and practice. Little is known about interprofessional education (IPE) to increase IPC in the context of care for frail older people in the community. This study evaluates the effectiveness of IPE on IPC of primary health and social care providers providing care to frail older people in three districts in the Netherlands. A before-after study among 55 health care professionals using social network analysis was performed. The number of contacts increased on average with two contacts. The reciprocity in the districts increased with 15%, 2% and 13%. The diversity of contacts increased between 6% and 10% (p <.001; p .055; p .371). The IPE effectuated a larger, more collaborative, and diverse interprofessional network of health and social care professionals providing care to frail older people suggesting a ripple-effect of networked interventions.


2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 220-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Craddock ◽  
Cath O'Halloran ◽  
Alan Borthwick ◽  
Kath McPherson

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (10) ◽  
pp. 1966-1972 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Rice ◽  
Charles Normand

AbstractObjectiveThe present study aimed to establish the annual public expenditure arising from the health and social care of patients with diet-related malnutrition (DRM) in the Republic of Ireland.DesignCosts were calculated by (i) estimating the prevalence of DRM in health-care settings derived from age-standardised comparisons between available Irish data and large-scale UK surveys and (ii) applying relevant costs from official sources to estimates of health-care utilisation by adults with DRM. No attempt has been made to estimate separately the costs of DRM and any associated disease, since each can be a cause or consequence of the other. The methods used are adapted from an evaluation of the cost of malnutrition in the UK by the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (2009).SettingsHospitals, nursing homes, out-patient clinics, primary-care clinics and home care.SubjectsAll adult patients receiving hospital in-patient, out-patient or specified community health-care services.ResultsThe annual public health and social care cost associated with adult malnourished patients in Ireland is estimated at over €1·4 billion, representing 10 % of the health-care budget. Most of this cost arises in acute hospital or residential care settings (i.e. 70 %), with nutritional support estimated to account for <3 % of spend.ConclusionsThe cost associated with the care of patients with DRM is substantial and may rise as the proportion of older people within the population increases, a group at increased risk of DRM. Despite growing pressure on health-care budgets, little attention has been focused on the economic burden associated with DRM in Ireland or the potential for savings arising from improved detection and treatment of those at risk.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 237-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Muirhead ◽  
Derek George Ward ◽  
Brenda Howard

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a digital tool in an English county striving towards a vision of integrated information that is used to underpin an increasingly integrated future of health and social care delivery. Design/methodology/approach It discusses the policy context nationally, the origins and implementation of the initiative, the authors’ experiences and viewpoint highlighting key challenges and learning, as well as examples of new work undertaken. Findings In all, 12 health and care organisations have participated in this project. The ability for local commissioners and providers of services to now understand “flow” both between and within services at a granular level is unique. Costs are modest, and the opportunities for refining and better targeting as well as validating services are significant, thus demonstrating a return on investment. Key learning includes how organisational development was equally as important as the implementation of innovative new software, that change management from grass roots to strategic leaders is vital, and that the whole system is greater than the sum of its otherwise in-silo parts. Practical implications Data linkage initiatives, whether local, regional or national in scale, need to be programme managed. A robust governance and accountability framework must be in place to realise the benefits of such as a solution, and IT infrastructure is paramount. Social implications Organisational development, collaborative as well as distributed leadership, and managing a change in culture towards health and care information is critical in order to create a supportive environment that fosters learning across organisational boundaries. Originality/value This paper draws on the recent experience of achieving large-scale data integration across the boundaries of health and social care, to help plan and commission services more effectively. This rich, multi-agency intelligence has already begun to change the way in which the system considers service planning, and learning from this county’s approach may assist others considering similar initiatives.


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