A Literature Review on the Foundations and Potentials of Digital Teaching Scenarios for Interprofessional Health Care Education

The health care system is increasingly complex and specialized, but it presents the actors involved with the challenge of working together in interprofessional teams. One way to meet this challenge is through interprofessional training approaches, where representatives of different professions learn together with learners of other professions. This article contributes to the question of how interprofessional teaching in health care education can be designed with a low threshold by using digital media. We focus on learning with digital learning platforms and learning with videos. Based on existing empirical findings, these approaches are discussed in terms of their potential and limitations for interprofessional teaching. In particular, we examine how these approaches influence the core competence domains of interprofessional collaborative practice. Digital collaborative learning platforms are suitable for teaching interprofessional competences, since they enable social and professional exchange among learners of different professions. Videos are suitable for imparting medical declarative and procedural knowledge. Based on these considerations, the use of videos in combination with interaction possibilities is presented as a didactic approach that can combine the aspect of knowledge transfer with the possibility of interprofessional computer-based collaboration.

Shifting Organizational Cultures: Developing Leaders in Humanistic Interprofessional Education

Organizational cultures significantly influence faculty and clinician well-being, trainees’ professional identity formation, and the care of patients and families. The ability of interprofessional healthcare teams to work collaboratively is important for safe, high quality, relationship-centered care. A multi-site project, Faculty Development for the Interprofessional Teaching of Humanism,* was initiated to create a national curriculum in humanism and professionalism designed to train interprofessional education (IPE) faculty leaders. Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School (BCH/HMS) is the first pediatric site selected to design and implement this curriculum. Our objectives were to: 1) develop a national curriculum in humanism and professionalism for IPE faculty leaders; 2) adapt the curriculum for pediatrics; and 3) create and sustain a faculty fellowship for IPE leaders at BCH/HMS that promotes humanistic values in organizational culture and learning and care environments. We designed and implemented the curriculum at nine national sites. Topics focus on collaboration, communication, and relationships and include: highly functioning teams; advanced team formation; patients’ perspectives; empathy; well-being, resilience, renewal; diversity & inclusion; appreciative inquiry; values; IPE and others. To achieve sustainability at BCH/HMS, we created a unique Faculty Fellowship for Leaders in Humanistic Interprofessional Education. To increase impact, we recruited co-sponsors from departments across BCH. Fellows participate in 1½-hour, twice-monthly small-group sessions for 8 months and design and implement a group project. Twenty-one faculty applied. The first cohort included 11 faculty representing medicine, social work, nursing, and psychology. The Faculty Fellowship provides opportunities for IPE faculty leaders to enhance teaching skills, collaboration, relationships, reflective capacities, and role modeling in humanism and professionalism, and to work together to foster humanistic values within organizational culture. *Supported by a multi-institutional grant from the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation (Dr. Branch as national PI; Dr. Rider as site PI)