scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Teamwork: Student Differences and Teaching Implications

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Janet R. Buelow ◽  
Rod McAdams ◽  
Alice Adams ◽  
Leigh E. Rich

Teamwork with individuals from multiple disciplines is recognized as a significant skill necessary for professional employment. While a variety of teaching methods for students in health care professions have been investigated and found to be generally effective in improving interdisciplinary team skills, one field - health administration - has not been included in these studies. The research presented here used two standardized instruments (with seven distinct subscales) to compare perceptions of health care administration students and clinical students regarding interdisciplinary teamwork. Three attitudes toward interdisciplinary health care teams were similar among all students - shared leadership, perceived need for cooperation, and understanding others’ values. Significant differences between administration and clinical students were found in four areas. Health administration students exhibited lower scores for: 1) believing in the value of teamwork, 2) recognizing teamwork efficiency, 3) believing their profession was perceived as competent by other health care professionals, and 4) recognizing their own lack of cooperation in teamwork. These findings reveal the diverse cultures among health care professionals and invite educators to consider the diversity of their students when implementing interdisciplinary team-teaching techniques and methods.

Author(s):  
Warren G. McDonald

Health care administration and opticianry are both health care professions, but moving in different directions and both in need of transformation. Opticianry, once a time-honored endeavor, is now floundering to find a direction for the future, while health administration has flourished and has a very bright future in the changing face of health care delivery. This chapter provides background and insights into the history of both fields and some of the recent changes in technology that have affected them that necessitates transforming the way future students are educated and trained. A review of the current literature of both fields provides ample evidence of the need for transforming curricula as technology and health professions continue to rapidly evolve. This technological evolution demands transformation of the educational process.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa S. Jutte ◽  
Fredrick R. Browne ◽  
Marie Reynolds

Context: Interprofessional education (IPE) is encouraged in health care education in the hope that it will improve communication among future health care professionals. In response, health professional education programs are developing IPE curricula. Objective: To determine if a multicourse interprofessional (IP) project impacted students' knowledge and views on other health care professions, as well as their attitudes toward IPE. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Four university classrooms. Patients or Other Participants: Eighty-one undergraduate students (32 men, 49 women) from 4 introductory courses (2 athletic training sections, 41 students; 1 health administration section, 19 students; and 1 nursing section, 21 students) participated in 2 surveys and an IP project. Main Outcome Measure(s): Participants completed a modified Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) questionnaire. The faculty assigned students to an IP group with representation from each discipline. Groups were instructed to produce a presentation on an assigned health care profession. After completing the project, students completed the same modified RIPLS questionnaire. Means and frequency were calculated. Quantitative data were analyzed with analysis of variance followed by Tukey post hoc testing when appropriate. Results: After the IP project, students from all disciplines reported an increased knowledge regarding nursing, health administration, athletic training, and other health care professions in general and how their discipline differed from other health care disciplines. All students agreed that they should practice communication with other health care disciplines. Other perceptions related to IPE did not change. Conclusions: Undergraduate athletic training, health administration, and nursing students who completed an IP project reportedly increased their knowledge of health care disciplines and increased their appreciation for practicing communication among health care disciplines. Future studies should assess how increasing basic knowledge of health care professions may impact the integration of advanced IPE concepts later in one's professional education.


1989 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 245-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Harrison Hadley

This article identifies twenty-six jurisdictions where nurses have been granted legal authority to prescribe drugs. The jurisdictions are divided into two groups: those where nurses have authority to prescribe without the supervision of a physician and can therefore function as substitutes for physicians; and those where nurses may prescribe only in collaboration with a supervising physician, and are thereby limited to functioning in a complementary role.The issue of prescriptive authority is discussed within the context of regulating the practice of nursing, and more generally, the health care professions. The article reviews the history of Nurse Practice Acts, focusing upon the Connecticut statute and the economic implications of this statutory approach. It is argued that the law should promote the use of nurses as substitutes for physicians whenever appropriate.The article concludes with a two-part proposal for reform: an “authorized prescriber” statute requiring health care professionals desiring to prescribe drugs to pass an examination testing their knowledge of pharmacology and drug therapy; and the elimination of the “unauthorized practice” provisions of the statutes regulating all health care professions. The proposal promotes economic efficiency by eliminating artificial constraints on the substitutability of labor in the provision of health services.


2012 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-194
Author(s):  
Klara Lorinczi ◽  
Vanessa Denheyer ◽  
Amanda Pickard ◽  
Alice Lee ◽  
Diana R. Mager

Dysphagia is highly prevalent in patients with chronic neurological disorders and can increase the risk for comorbidities such as aspiration pneumonia and malnutrition. Treatment includes timely access to interdisciplinary health care teams with specialized skills in dysphagia management. A retrospective chart review (n=99 of 125 charts screened) was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of referral criteria to identify and triage patients with suspected dysphagia to an ambulatory dysphagia clinic. Variables collected included demographic information (age), anthropometric information (body mass index [BMI], each patient’s sex), reason for referral, primary medical diagnosis, symptomatology (e.g., pneumonia, chest congestion), nutrition and swallowing interventions, clinic wait times, missed/cancelled appointments, and referring health care professional. The mean age and mean BMI ± standard deviation of patients reviewed were 68.7 years ± 18.4 years and 25.2 kg/m2 ± 6.7 kg/m2, respectively. Average clinic wait times were 158 days (13 to 368 days) for routine and 52 days (0 to 344 days) for urgent assessments (p<0.001). The most common reason(s) for referral was/were related to dysphagia (n=83), surgery (n=50), and/or gastrointestinal symptomatology (n=28); 80% to 90% of patients received varying diagnostic and treatment services for dysphagia. Development of effective referral criteria is critical to ensure that clients with dysphagia receive timely diagnostic, treatment, and nutrition interventions by interdisciplinary health care teams specializing in dysphagia.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016327872110408
Author(s):  
Hosung (Joel) Kang ◽  
Cecilia Flores-Sandoval ◽  
Benson Law ◽  
Shannon Sibbald

Teamwork among health care professionals has been found to improve patient outcomes and reduce burnout. Surveys from individual team members are often used to measure the effectiveness of teamwork performance, as they provide an efficient way to capture various constructs of teamwork. This allows evaluators to better understand team functioning, areas of strength, and to identify potential areas for improvement. However, the majority of published surveys are yet to be validated. We conducted a review of psychometric evidence to identify instruments frequently used in practice and identified in the literature. The databases searched included MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant articles, 15 articles met the inclusion criteria for full assessment. Seven surveys were validated and most frequently identified in the literature. This review aims to facilitate the selection of instruments that are most appropriate for research and clinical practice. More research is required to develop surveys that better reflect the current reality of teamwork in our evolving health system, including a greater consideration for patient as team members. Additionally, more research is needed to encompass an increasing development of team assessment tools.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Kuka ◽  
Jan P. Ehlers ◽  
Michaela Zupanic

Abstract Background In Germany academic degree programs for non-medical health care professions (nursing, physical, occupational and speech language therapy, midwifery) have been established only recently, even if they play a key role in today´s complex patient-centered health care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the development and current state of German education research in these professions as well as to conduct a comparison to international research activities in this field.Method To achieve these objectives a bibliometric and content-related publication analysis was performed from 2008 to 2017 in four international high-impact journals. Based on appropriate inclusion criteria (bibliographical and biographical criteria, focus on first and last author, original study) and their development into a coding scheme, articles were recorded systematically and results analyzed quantitatively and content-wise. Group comparisons between German and international health care professions as well as interdisciplinary comparisons between the individual professions were performed.Results On the whole, 11.891 articles were analyzed for participation of the respective target groups, either as first or as last author. Of these, 164 original studies met the inclusion criteria with 157 publications pertaining to international and only seven to German health care professionals. The majority of authors belonged to the discipline of nursing science (n=138). North America (36.63%), Australia (18.32%) and Asia (14.85%) rank among the regions that publish most frequently. Publications by German health care professionals are rare but showed an overall high level of quality.Conclusion International publication activities by non-medical health care professionals have been on the rise in recent years. Specific funding measures as well as transnational and interdisciplinary collaborations may be potential ways of strengthening and expanding education research in countries with only young academic experiences.


2006 ◽  
Vol 72 (11) ◽  
pp. 999-1004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph G. Depalma

This review describes the development, implementation, and current status of programs that promote and maintain surgical quality performance within the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration (VHA). It also considers evolving initiatives to improve surgical outcomes and enhance patient safety. The VHA is a nationwide health care system operated and funded by the federal government. It consists of 154 federal hospitals and 875 clinics staffed by 16,000 nurses, 33,000 other health care professionals, 15,000 doctors, and 25,000 university-affiliated faculty physicians. The VHA trains 90,000 health care professionals, and additionally its activities are supported by 140,000 dedicated volunteers. More than 1000 surgeons in all specialties serve in its facilities. Since these programs began more than 19 years ago, there has been a steady decrease in both risk-adjusted and actual mortality rates tracked annually.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1314-1320 ◽  
Author(s):  
César Carrillo-García ◽  
María del Carmen Solano-Ruíz ◽  
María Emilia Martínez-Roche ◽  
Carmen Isabel Gómez-García

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the influence of gender and age on the quality of the professional lives of health care professionals at a university hospital. METHOD: a total of 546 professionals completed a general questionnaire that measured sociodemographic variables and evaluated job satisfaction using a scale adopted from the NTP 394 Job Satisfaction scale and translated into Spanish. RESULTS: overall, 77.2% of the professionals surveyed were satisfied with the work they perform. With regards to gender, we found overwhelming evidence of the feminization of practically all health care professions included in the study, with higher levels of job satisfaction among women than men. Regarding age, 20-30-year-olds and professionals over 61 years old showed higher satisfaction levels than did middle-aged professionals. Higher levels of dissatisfaction were reported by professionals between 41 and 50 years old. CONCLUSIONS: we were able to detect the influence of gender and age on the level of job satisfaction, finding significant associations between job satisfaction and both of these variables. Generally, women expressed more satisfaction than men, and elderly professionals showed higher satisfaction compared to younger professionals. Management policies should focus on taking action to correct the conditions that produce dissatisfaction among certain groups of employees.


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