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Abstract

Purpose: Interprofessional education is a foundational component of many health professions educational programs as it contributes to the goals of the Quadruple Aim by prioritizing collaborative and streamlined quality healthcare. Furthermore, student engagement in interprofessional educational activities provides opportunities to better understand their own and others’ health profession disciplines. The purpose of this project was to utilize Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative (CIHC) to evaluate a framework for student engagement in a community-engaged project focused on reducing barriers to care in people living with type 1 diabetes in rural communities. Methods: As members of an interprofessional, type 1 diabetes, community-engaged research team, students from various graduate and pre-health professions programs participated a variety of activities as research assistants to increase their competency as future healthcare practitioners. These activities included research capacity building, interprofessional collaborations, patient and community interactions, and interprofessional healthcare research. Utilizing the CIHC Framework, the learners reflected and assessed their interprofessional competency, growth, professional identify, and understanding of interprofessional collaboration while providing suggestions for future students participating in interprofessional health sciences research. Findings: Learners found the CIHC to be a robust tool for reflecting on their abilities to provide care in an interprofessional team. The community engagement projects heightened their abilities in role clarification, team functioning, and collaborative leadership which were determined by the group to be some of the most essential skills for entering an interprofessional healthcare workforce. Conclusions: Use of the CIHC framework was an effective method to guide learner progress in developing interprofessional skills within a community engagement project. Reflection on achievement of CIHC domains assists learners in identification of growth in professional identity and understanding of interprofessional collaboration.

Author Bio(s)

Elise Boyle, OTD, OTR/L is an Occupational Therapy Neurology Fellow at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.

Benjamin Feiten, OTD, OTR/L was an occupational therapy student in the Occupational Therapy Department at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.

Amy A. Abbott, PhD, RN is Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.

Shelby Hoffmann, PharmD was an student in the Pharmacy Practice Department at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.

Sadie Schultes, is a student in the Occupational Therapy Department and was an undergraduate student in the Lifestyle Medicine program at the time of the project at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.

Emily Knezevich, PharmD, CDECS, BCPS is a Professor in the Pharmacy Practice Department at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.

Vanessa D. Jewell, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA is an Associate Professor in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Endocrinology, and the Director of the Diabetes Research & Wellness Collaborative at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC. She was the project lead/PI for the PCORI grant.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our community partners and additional research team members: Kameran Dostal, Vicki Brown, RD, Laura Eberly, Kim Radenz, Dayna Sur, and Emily Ludwig, OTD, OTR/L. Thank you to Julia Pulawski for her formatting of the manuscript. Furthermore, we would like to thank the following people for their research capacity trainings: Zsolt Nagykaldi, PhD, BTh; Brenda Coppard, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA; Kevin Fuji, PharmD; John Stone, MD, PhD; and Omofolasade Kosoko-Lasaki, MD, MSPH.

DOI

10.46743/1540-580X/2023.2408

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