Book Review: Work-based assessment of teamwork: An interprofessional approach

In this book, Thistlethwaite and colleagues report on the development and validation of iTOFT – the Individual Teamwork Observation and Feedback Tool. This is the culmination of a two-year international project (2012-2014) led by a team of researchers from five Australian, one UK and one Canadian university.

 

The report is structured in 10 Chapters, with a further six helpful appendices. Chapter 1 sets the scene for the project within the wider literature on interprofessional learning, which is followed by a review in Chapter 2 of accreditation standards, professional bodies and interprofessional learning frameworks. The educational ethos and theoretical backdrop of the project is explained in Chapter 3, positioning the iTOFT within constructivist learning theory and competency-based education.

 

Chapter 4 could be in itself a project output, providing a comprehensive review of existing teamwork measures building on and extending two existing reviews by the Harvard Business School and the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative. They very helpfully provide an overview of the existing literature, summarize and extend the conclusions of previous reviews and illustrate the wealth and diversity of available tools. Tables 4.6 and 4.7 in this chapter are essential reading for scholars working in this field.

 

The groundwork for the development of the first iteration of the iTOFT is explained in Chapter 5, including a description of the Delphi approach used. The field testing is discussed in Chapter 6 and the results of this in Chapter 7. Data were drawn from 132 episodes of assessment, which occurred in hospital, primary/community care and school settings. Chapter 7 is a detailed analysis of that data, demonstrating the rigour and care of the project team in developing a sound instrument. The quantitative evaluation was complemented by a qualitative arm to the project, with a very brief summary of key themes and findings arising from that shown in Chapter 8.

 

Chapter 9 draws the strings of the work together and discusses the key principles of the final iTOFT and its two versions: there is a basic version meant for junior students, which covers 11 observable behaviours under the headings of shared decision-making and working in a team; and, an advanced version for senior students and junior health professionals with 10 observable behaviours under the headings of shared decision-making, working in a team, leadership and patient safety. Finally, Chapter 10 summarises the work, issues recommendations and cautions of its limitations.

 

The full report is a must read for those interested in using the iTOFT, although it also comes with a shorter ‘Resource Pack’ serving as a kind of manual for using either version of the tool. I remain skeptical about the utility of having two versions and find the advanced version to be more helpful. In particular, the basic version misses items on leadership and patient safety, which I would argue are important to feedback on regardless of the seniority of the student. The report, tool and resource pack is directed at interprofessional learners, teachers and program organisers all of whom would find this work interesting – whether they plan to use the tool or not.

 

Reviewed by

Dr. Andreas Xyrichis

Lecturer, King’s College London, UK

Work-based assessment of teamwork: An interprofessional approach

The iTOFT Consortium (Jill Thistlethwaite, Kathy Dallest, Lesley Bainbridge, Fiona Bogossian, David Boud, Roger Dunston, Donna Drynan, Diann Eley, Dawn Forman, Sue Fyfe, Monica Moran, Christopher Roberts, Jenny Strong, Robyn Dickie).

Canberra: Australian Government, Office for Learning and Teaching. 2015

163 pages, Freely available online

ISBN 978-1-76028-399-5

Book Review: Collaboration across Health Research and Medical Care

Reinforcing the title of this book, Collaborations across Health Research and Medical Care was written with 17 contributors. Each contributor fluently depicts their experience within different aspects of collaboration in research and medical care, while also delivering specified theories and examples pertaining to their focus. The information highlights social organization and content of collaboration through diversity of basic and applied forms of research. This volume is divided into 3 sections of varied approaches, supporting and arguing major focal points through progressive practices in collaborated research.

The first part of this volume is introductory, delving into the differences of opinion and motivation between scientists and methods of research. It highlights the evolvement and importance of collaboration internationally. Concisely, authors of the first section deliver enlightening information between research methods while also exemplifying complications that can arise through diverse collaboration.

Part two focuses on collaboration in health research, using the Virgo Consortium for Cosmological Supercomputer Simulations (in which scientists collaborate globally from the UK, Netherlands, Germany, USA, Canada, and China) as a good basis to support collaborative research with the idea that a global pandemic is bound to occur again. Additionally, it delves into genomics and bibliometric research as an effective method of study. The authors highlight pros, cons and complications that can occur with intellectual property when co-authoring. Further information is given on the evolution of collaboration with charts depicting overviews of international publications presenting the evolution of this practice. The last sub category addresses legitimacy and credibility of research methods using a relevant example which delivers insightful information pertaining to academic and government researchers with corporations and trade associations.

Part three focuses on collaborative health infrastructures, discussing benefits and complications of registry networks and its impact on developing clinical practice and assisting in evolving health policies. Leading into child index script and multidisciplinary collaboration, the author perceptively highlights current issues in regards to child welfare and how research for this paradigm is not scripted easily.

The last section of this volume discusses many topics, comprehended with ease while depicting the importance of different actors supporting research projects, directly or indirectly; varying research clusters with both intellectual and social reasons for collaboration, and distinguishing credibility and legitimacy. The portion ends with collaborative processes between physician and patient through analytical phases.

After completing this volume I can conclude that this piece of literature comprehensively identifies the advantages, motivations and complications of collaborative work, internationally or locally. The parts discussed and delivered are diverse enough to encompass different aspects of collaborative research while delivering specific examples. This book succeeded in reviewing numerous areas of focus candidly and providing sufficient references and footnotes to support their reviews. Each author conveys succinctly, resulting in the reader to ruminate each topic of discussion.

Reviewed by

Alisha Jordan

Freelance Writer/Author

Healthy Collaboration

Bart Penders, Niki Vermeulen & John N. Parker (eds.). Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Farnham, UK.

247 pages, $107.96

ISBN 9781409460954

 

Announcement: Journal of Interprofessional Care Baldwin Award Winner

 Introduction

The Baldwin Award is made in recognition of DeWitt ‘Bud’ Baldwin Jr.’s lifelong and distinguished contribution to interprofessional care. It was first awarded in 2009 for the best article of the 2008 volume of the Journal of Interprofessional Care. Each year since, a panel of judges recruited from the Journal’s editorial board assesses all the articles published in a single volume and decides upon the winner based upon five key criteria for quality. Below, we detail the process and outcome of the most recent winner of the Baldwin Award for volume 28.

The adjudication process

The judging panel changed a little this year as Alan Bleakley stepped down as chair after his six year involvement. We would of course like to thank Alan for all his hard work. The panel for this year’s award consisted of Journal editorial board members: Joanne Goldman (who has once judged on the award); John Toner (a long-standing award judge) and Scott Reeves (an award judge for the past few years).

In judging the quality of work published in the journal we used the following (well established) five criteria to select the winner. An article:

-Adds significantly to the evidence base informing interprofessional care and education worldwide

-Potentially has a significant impact on theory informing practice in interprofessional care and education

-Potentially has a significant impact on research design in interprofessional care and education.

-Is clear and cogent (written well, and clearly argued).

-Shows innovation in the field of interprofessional studies and practice.

Only articles (not commentaries, short reports, editorials) are considered for the Baldwin Award. Articles authored or co-authored by any of us (the judges) are removed from consideration.  Articles are scored on a scale from 1 to 10 on each criterion listed above. The six Journal issues that made up volume 28 were divided equally among the judges, (we each assess around 20 papers). However, one of us did read all the articles to get an overview of range and quality and to ensure parity across scores. One of us then collated results and discussed grades with the other two judges across two rounds. We took the top three articles from each judge to round two and assessed these articles, taking into consideration our shared summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of these articles.

The Baldwin Award winner

Based on the above process, we came to a unanimous decision on the winning article:

Paula Rowland & Simon Kitto. Patient safety and professional discourses: implications for interprofessionalism

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.891574

Congratulations to both authors who provided a very thoughtful critical analysis of interprofessional patient safety practices which employed a sophisticated theorising of this project by drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on discourse.

Runners Up

We must also congratulate the two runners up which the judging panel felt were both very strong contributions to the Journal:

Christopher Green. The making of the interprofessional arena in the United Kingdom: a social and political history

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2013.867840

Douglas Archibald, David Trumpower and Colla MacDonald. Validation of the interprofessional collaborative competency attainment survey (ICCAS)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.917407

It was felt that Green presented a very illuminating analysis key conceptual and theoretical elements in his discursive paper on the socio-politics of IPE in the UK, whereas Archibald and colleagues carefully detailed the validation process of a new innovative tool to assess collaborative competence.   

Honourable Mention

In addition, for their rare economic evaluation of Interprofessional student clinics, we agreed that an honourable mention should go to the following paper:

Terry Haines, Fiona Kent & Jennifer Keating. Interprofessional student clinics: an economic evaluation of collaborative clinical placement education

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2013.874983

Congratulations again to all the authors whose papers have contributed to improving the scholarship of the interprofessional field.

Brief reflections

While it was agreed amongst the judges that the standard and quality of articles published in the Journal continues to improve, it was noted there were a few areas which authors should pay attention to in designing, implementing and writing-up their interprofessional studies:

-It was agreed that many of the quantitative papers could improve their quality if authors more effectively engaged with theoretical debate related to the work described.

-While qualitative papers were generally better at theorising, a number of these paper could have been improved through better use of an underpinning research methodology when designing the study.

-Of the small, but growing number of mixed methods papers submitted, it was felt that more effort was needed to ensure engagement with a clear research design (e.g. sequential, convergent) and also that approaches to data collection were more balanced with equal amounts of quantitative or qualitative data gathered.

Again judging on the Baldwin Award was both an insightful and illuminating process. We would like to congratulate again the winning authors as well as the runners-up on their stimulating articles. We would also like to acknowledge all authors who publish their work in the Journal of Interprofessional Care for continuing to make the journal such a vibrant and important medium of exchange and innovation in our field.

Scott Reeves

Joanne Goldman

John Toner

Baldwin Award Judges, Journal of Interprofessional Care