Renewal Through Team Development: Experiencing an Emerging Program Design in Interprofessional Education for Healthcare Practitioners

摘要

This paper highlights the relationship between developmental evaluation and curriculum design and its impact on quality Interprofessional Education (IPE) training for practicing healthcare professionals. The evaluation research study was part of a Teams of Interprofessional Staff (TIPS) project designed to provide interprofessional education to practicing healthcare professional who were engaged in specific clinical initiatives as an interprofessional team. The evaluation, both formative and summative, was focused on determining the impact of such an educational program on individual team members, the team, and their clinical goals. However, analysis of the rich data from multiple data sources also revealed critical themes arising from the developmental evaluation process used. Perceptions of quality were strongly linked to a fit between participants' experiences, needs, wants, and perceived competencies; a formal evaluation process; and project administrators/facilitators respecting and responding to the participants' feedback via the evaluators. This study takes one small step towards contributing to the developing base of theoretical IPE knowledge informed by practical experiences. Moreover, our findings contribute to the growing body of literature on IPE by revealing critical IPE course requirements of being responsive to emerging needs, engaging, and personally and academically satisfying. By sharing insights with regard to the design and evaluation of the TIPS program we hope other stakeholders can benefit from our experiences to positively impact the quality of IPE, targeted o practicing professionals.