Announcement: Journal of Interprofessional Care Baldwin Award Winner

Journal of Interprofessional Care Baldwin Award Winner


Introduction
The Baldwin Award is 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 original 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 - Volume 29.


The adjudication process
The judging panel consisted of three Journal editorial board members: Joanne Goldman (associate editor), John Toner (advisory panel member) and Scott Reeves (editor-in-chief). In judging the quality of work published in the Journal we used established criteria to select the winners. Each article was judged on the following:


-How it adds significantly to the evidence base informing interprofessional education/practice worldwide
-Its potential to have a significant impact on theory informing interprofessional education/practice
-Its potential to have a significant impact on research design in interprofessional education/practice
-Its clarity and cogency (i.e. written well, clearly argued)
-How it shows innovation in the field of interprofessional education/practice.


Only articles (not commentaries, IPEP guides, short reports, editorials) were considered for the Baldwin Award. Articles authored or co-authored by any of the judges were 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 29 were divided equally among the judges so we each individually assess around 20 articles. However, one of us (SR) read all the articles to get an overall sense of quality and ensure parity across scores. Results from the initial assessment were collated and shared between the judges. We took the top two articles from each judge to the next round where we re-assessed each. Following discussion of these papers we arrived at our results.


The Baldwin Award winner
We came to a unanimous decision that the winners of this year Baldwin Award are the authors of the following series of papers:


Sarah Sims, Gillian Hewitt & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of collaboration, pooling of resources, learning and role blurring in interprofessional healthcare teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.939745


Gillian Hewitt, Sarah Sims & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of communication, influence and behavioural norms in interprofessional teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.941458


Sarah Sims, Gillian Hewitt & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of a shared purpose, critical reflection, innovation and leadership in interprofessional healthcare teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.941459


While this decision is unusual, as we have only ever presented this award to the authors of a single paper, the judges felt that the articles, considered together, provide key insights for the interprofessional field. The series actually spans four papers (the first was published in volume 28)
that collectively report findings from the first realist synthesis of interprofessional teamwork. The series collectively provides important conceptual, empirical and theoretical insights into key contextual factors, mechanisms and outcomes related to the functioning of interprofessional teams.


Runners Up
We want to also congratulate the two runner up papers which the judging panel felt were very strong contributions to the Journal:


Sirpa Saario, Kirsi Juhila & Suvi Raitakari, “Boundary work in inter-agency and interprofessional client transitions” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2015.1040490


This paper offers a thoughtful analysis of boundary work in inter-agency working using the social science theories of Thomas Gieryn and Andrew Abbott.


Daniel G. Dominguez, David S. Fike, Eric J. MacLaughlin & Joseph A. Zorek, “A comparison of the validity of two instruments assessing health professional student perceptions of interprofessional education and practice” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.947360


This paper which systematically compares the use of two interprofessional scales (Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams, Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education) offers a useful contribution to the statistical literature.


Honourable Mentions
In addition, it was agreed that honourable mentions should go to the following two papers:


Krist Thomson, Sue Outram, Conor Gilligan & Tracy Levett-Jones, “Interprofessional experiences of recent healthcare graduates: A social psychology perspective on the barriers to effective communication, teamwork, and patient-centred care” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2015.1040873


This paper offers a useful empirical insight of professional identity development using the lenses of social identity and realistic conflict theories.


Simon Kitto, Stuart Duncan Marshall, Sarah E. McMillan, Bill Shearer, Michael Buist, Rachel Grant, Monica Finnigan & Stuart Wilson, “Rapid response systems and collective (in)competence: An exploratory analysis of intraprofessional and interprofessional activation factors” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.984021


This paper provides a helpful analysis of rapid response systems using sociological theory, including socio-cultural approach developed Charles Bosk and medical dominance theory developed by Elliot Freidson.


Congratulations to all the authors whose papers have contributed to improving the scholarship of the interprofessional field. These represent the seven best papers of over 70 published in volume 29 of the Journal of Interprofessional Care.


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 that there were a few areas which authors should pay attention to in constructing and presenting their interprofessional work:


-As we noted last year, there was relatively limited engagement with theory in the papers we considered this year. Once again, it was agreed that work could be improved if authors engaged more with the theoretical literature to develop their study and/or employ theories to explore/explain the nature of their empirical data.


-Again, while qualitative papers were generally better with using theory, a number of these papers could have been improved by paying more attention to quality issues (e.g. reflexivity, member checking, use of iteration) to provide a more informed understanding of the trustworthiness/credibility of their work.


- In addition to the standard phrase about securing formal ethical approval, it would be useful for authors to provide further information related to how issues of consent, confidentiality and anonymity were dealt with in their work.


Our involvement in the Baldwin Award was again an insightful process. We would like to congratulate the winning authors, runners-up and authors with honourable mentions on their excellent 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

Book Review: Assessing Competence in Professional Performance across Disciplines and Professions

Book Review: Assessing Competence in Professional Performance across Disciplines and Professions With a foreword by Lee S. Shulman

Innovation and Change in Professional Education (13th Edition)
Paul F. Wimmers & Marcia Mentkowski. Switzerland: Springer, 2016
488 pages
ISBN 978-3-319-30062-7


This 13th volume, Assessing Competence in Professional Performance across Disciplines and Professions is part of a series dedicated to introducing innovation and discussing issues in professional programs. Each book focuses on a different theme with the assessment of competence in professional education is the focus of this edition.

The book opens with a foreword by Lee S. Shulman then presents twenty-one chapters by various authors. The content of each chapter is similarly organized with headings and subheadings. Each chapter begins with an Abstract, followed by a box titled Takeaway which highlights the main ideas of the chapter. The chapter concludes with References preceded by a box titled Issues/Questions for Reflection which contains thought-provoking considerations. The first and last chapters are introductory and concluding chapters by the editors. The chapters’ in-between each focus on a subject in more depth. Some chapters are literature reviews while others present case studies and empirical research, such as questionnaires.

The grouping of similar themed chapters provides structure. The first three chapters introduce performance assessment. Chapters four through eleven present issues supported by research on a particular discipline. Chapter eight is the exception, which discusses the capability of undergraduate students’ across disciplines to transfer learned knowledge and skills across courses and time. Chapter four and six discusses the reliability, validity, and authenticity of assessments to real world applicability in medical programs. Chapter five focuses on the importance of professional competence-based assessment in engineering programs. Chapter seven focuses on the inclusion of performance assessment in law programs. Chapter nine addresses the importance of feedback and consistence rubrics in nursing programs. Chapter ten and eleven focus on the assessment of critical thinking in health care professionals. Chapters twelve through fifteen address issues in teamwork from effective assessment to the psychometrics to a literature review and research into what comprises a collaboration in healthcare professionals. Chapter sixteen and seventeen focuses on skill development of faculty, for example basic concepts of student assessment and leadership training and assessment. Chapter eighteen through twenty present various issues. Chapter eighteen discusses whether programs in the medical field should offer training in being humane. Chapter nineteen compares and contrasts assessment in time-based programs verses competency-based programs.

Chapter twenty deliberates the development and implementation of the Uniform Bar Examination. In the last chapter, Paul Wimmers and Marcia Mentkowski tie together the main themes to discuss the assessment required to prepare graduates of professional programs successfully enter the work force.
This book is of interest to the faculty of undergraduate and graduate professional programs across many disciplines. In particular, chapter recommendations that highlight additions and changes in the curriculum may be of importance to faculty and education coordinators. In addition, case studies and results of research focus on medical, law, engineering, and nursing programs. Faculty of these programs may find the topics discussed most relevant and applicable, although the concepts discussed may generalize to multiple disciplines.

Review by: Anureet Gill, Graduate Student, Concordia University of Edmonton

Summary: Crucial Conversations: An interprofessional learning opportunity for senior healthcare students

Crucial Conversations: An interprofessional learning opportunity for senior healthcare students

             Clinical errors due to human mistakes are estimated to result in 400,000 preventable deaths per year. Strategies to improve patient safety often rely on healthcare workers’ ability to speak up with concerns. This becomes difficult during critical decision-making as a result of conflicting opinions and power differentials, themes underrepresented in many interprofessional initiatives.
These elements are prominent in the Crucial Conversations training course, which is offered as an interprofessional initiative at the University of Manitoba.

             Delisle, Grymonpre, Whitley, & Wirtzfeld (2016) sought to evaluate this initiative as an interprofessional learning (IPL) opportunity for pre-licensure senior healthcare students, as a way to foster interprofessional collaboration, and as a method of empowering students to vocalise their concerns. The attributes of this IPL opportunity were evaluated using the Points for Interprofessional Education Score (PIPES). The University of the West of England Interprofessional Questionnaire was administered before and after the course to assess changes in attitudes towards IPL, relationships, interactions, and teamwork.

             Crucial Conversations strongly attained the principles of interprofessional education on the PIPES instrument. A total of 38 volunteers completed the 16 hours of training: 15 (39%) medical rehabilitation, 10 (26%) medicine, 7 (18%) pharmacy, 5 (13%) nursing, and 1 (2%) dentistry. Baseline attitude scores were positive for three of the four subscales, all of which improved post-intervention. Interprofessional interactions remained negative possibly due to the lack of IPL opportunities along the learning continuum, the hidden curriculum, as well as the stereotyping and hierarchical structures in today’s healthcare environment preventing students from maximising the techniques learned by use of this interprofessional initiative.

KEYWORDS: Communication, interprofessional education, pre-qualifying/pre-licensure, quantitative method


For more: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13561820.2016.1215971

Summary: Interprofessional education in maternity services: Is there evidence to support policy?

Interprofessional education in maternity services: Is there evidence to support policy?

Nigel Davies, Simon Fletcher & Scott Reeves

Against a backdrop of poor maternity and obstetric care, identified in the Morecambe Bay Inquiry, the UK government has recently called for improvements and heralded investment in training. Given the complex mix of professionals working closely together in maternity services addressing the lack of joined up continuing professional development (CPD) is necessary. This led us to ask whether there is evidence of IPE in maternity services. As part of a wider systematic review of IPE, we searched for studies related to CPD in maternity services between May 2005 and June 2014. A total of 206 articles were identified with 24 articles included after initial screening. Further review revealed only eight articles related to maternity care, none of which met the inclusion criteria for the main systematic review. The main reasons for non-inclusion included weak evaluation, a focus on undergraduate IPE, and articles referring to paediatric/neonatal care only. Fewer articles were found than anticipated given the number of different professions working together in maternity services. This gap suggests further investigation is warranted.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27705011

Summary: Interprofessional Education and Practice Guide No. 8: Team-based interprofessional practice placements

Interprofessional Education and Practice Guide No. 8: Team-based interprofessional practice placements

Margo L. Brewer & Hugh Barr

Whilst interest in interprofessional learning (IPL) in practice contexts has grown in recent years, the complexities involved have led many universities to rely on IPL in the classroom, online, and/or simulated contexts. Curtin University’s Faculty of Health Sciences has successfully implemented a multi-award winning, large-scale Interprofessional Practice Programme. This programme, which began with five small pilots in 2009, provides team-based interprofessional practice placements for over 550 students from nine professions per annum. Drawing on both the literature and Curtin University’s experience, this Interprofessional Education and Practice Guide aims to assist university and practice-based educators to “weigh the case” for introducing team-based interprofessional placements. The key lessons learned at Curtin University are identified to offer guidance to others towards establishing a similar programme for students during their prequalifying courses in health, social care, and related fields.

Keywords: Interprofessional education, interprofessional learning, practice-based learning, team-based placements


Volume 30, 2016 - Issue 6: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13561820.2016.1220930?needAccess=true&journalCode=ijic20

Book Review: Collaborating Against Human Trafficking - Kirsten Foot

Book Review: Collaborating Against Human Trafficking

Kirsten Foot

Rowman and Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland)

September 3, 2015

231 pages, Hardback - $75.00; Paperback-$38.00; eBook-$37.99

Print ISBN 13:9781442246928; eBook ISBN 13:9781442246942

Kirsten Foot is a researcher, activist, and author of “Collaborating against Human Trafficking”. She presents a first-hand account and thoughtfully constructed conclusions around the many issues that develop when anti-trafficking organizations work together towards defeating human trafficking. The appropriate audience for this book includes: government agencies, victim service providers, community service/non-profit agencies including faith-based organizations and survivor-activists. Academics within other fields including sociology, public policy, policing, and psychology may also benefit from reading it.


Foot aims to identify the main problems that are encountered at the interpersonal, intra- and inter-organizational levels when aiming to reduce human trafficking and to give recommendations for tackling these issues. She succeeds in doing this by providing detailed analysis of interviews and observations with key informants within anti-human trafficking initiatives in three states within the United States. Her analysis is complemented by her personal experiences and feelings around being an anti-trafficking activist.


This book is organized into chapters that identify systemic barriers to collaboration as well as opportunities for organizations to improve collaboration efforts. Issues include the value of power and how it is gained and utilized, race and gender issues and the effects of differing beliefs, as well as values and principles held by various stakeholders.


The book summarizes and provides a clear structure to many issues that have yet to be collectively considered in this field. Foot has written a highly practical text that makes many useful suggestions for improving inter-organizational collaboration by offering group exercises and resources that combat human trafficking. Her protocols are well referenced and include detailed footnotes.

This book is best suited for a socio-political system similar to the United States. Foot mentions early on that these accounts and suggestions have the potential to be applied to other locales, despite that the book is from the perspective of organizations within the United States. Perhaps, the
most powerful implication for interprofessional practice is that researchers or activists from other countries should provide their own accounts in order to add further knowledge to Foot’s work and enhance a collaborated global response to human trafficking.


Overall, Foot succeeds in drawing the reader in with captivating notes from her interviews, field work and experiences and utilizes jargon that is accessible to audiences of different levels. This text is succinct yet detailed, and the author makes a clear point to remain as impartial as possible in order to encourage the reader to view issues presented from multiple perspectives. This book is very relevant to inter-professional care because it can be used as a point of reference when considering potential issues and improvements for collaboration within not only criminal justice and social work, but also other health-related and community-focused fields. Foot states that trust, respect and perseverance are the values required to improve interdisciplinary collaboration – a necessary and central factor – in the fight against human trafficking.


Janelle Panday, Masters Student, McMaster University

Blog Article: Capturing Interprofessional Conference Conversations Using a World Café Approach

Capturing Interprofessional Conference Conversations Using a World Café Approach

Anthony Breitbach PhD, ATC

Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri USA

Introduction

Professional and academic conferences are great opportunities to gather with colleagues who have expertise in your field of interest. Many times these events provide opportunities for rich interaction and conversations that could benefit the body of knowledge in your field. Capturing these conversations can be a challenge but, with proper planning, is possible through a World Café. The World Café creates a consensus event that utilizes the shared expertise of stakeholders (e.g. practitioners, educators, researchers) at these conferences allowing researchers to capture conversations on complex or controversial topics.


Based on research by Juanita Brown, the World Café’ draws on seven integrated design principles, it’s methodology is a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting large group dialogue. The seven design principles are: “1 - Set the Context; 2 - Create Hospitable Space; 3 - Explore Questions that Matter; 4 - Encourage Everyone’s Contribution; 5 - Connect Diverse Perspectives; 6 - Listen for Patterns and Insights and 7 - Share Collective Discoveries.” (The World Cafe Community Foundation, 2016).


The authors conducted collaborative research through a World Café during a workshop entitled “Utilizing Sport to Study and Improve Global Interprofessional Collaborative Health Care” at the All Together Better Health (ATBH) 8th International Conference on Values - Based Interprofessional Practice and Education on September 8, 2016 at Oxford, United Kingdom. ATBH is the leading global interprofessional practice and education conference under the direction of the World Coordinating Committee. It brings together providers, health system executives, educators, policymakers, and healthcare industry leaders to advance interprofessionalism locally, regionally and worldwide. (All Together Better Health, 2016).

Planning the project

Conducting research in conjunction with a workshop at a large international conference requires significant prior planning. The first step is to work with colleagues to develop a proposal for the conference. The proposal must provide the foundational evidence behind the topic and should also present the methodology for the research project. This is best done by conducting a thorough scoping review of the literature on your research topic. Generally these calls for proposals are available 6-9 months before the conference. It is important to submit the proposal for a session of a minimum of 45-60 minutes to allow sufficient time for the research. The work done on this proposal can also provide the foundation for a grant application that assists with research expenses such as World Café materials, travel expenses and the cost of the transcription of the audio recordings from the workshop. This research project was successfully supported through a Beaumont Faculty Development Grant from Saint Louis University.


Once the proposal has been accepted by the conference it is important to gain the appropriate ethics approvals from the collaborating institutions and organizations. The most logical place to start is with the home institution of the Primary Investigator. This project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Saint Louis University (SLU-IRB). The SLU-IRB also required letters of collaboration from the co-investigators’ institutions and the conference’s steering committee. Proactive planning and communication is especially important when dealing with collaborators from different countries. Special attention must be given to diverse institutional and organizational policies regarding human subject research training and ethics approvals. After gaining the appropriate approvals, the next step is to create the World Café.

Creating the conversations

Establishing the World Café requires appropriate planning with supplies and materials. There are five components comprise the basic model: (1) Setting; (2) Welcome and Introduction; (3) Small Group Rounds; (4) Questions; and (5) Harvest. (The World Cafe Community Foundation, 2016) Each of these step require special preparation to create the best possible environment for research.


1. Setting. The goal is to create a “special” environment, most often modeled after a café. If possible, request 4-6 small tables with 4-5 chairs each for the room from the conference planners. Each table should be covered with a paper “tablecloth” along with colored pens/pencils that can be used to capture graphical representations from the café. Audio conversations also need to be captured, inexpensive recorders for each table are necessary and these can each be used as a “talking stick” by participants.


2. Welcome and Introduction. This is where the investigators present the appropriate research disclosures; provide the foundational context of the workshop; introduce and share the etiquette of the World Café process; and pass out cards to the subjects that volunteered to participate in the study. These cards, distributed randomly to the participants, allow them to anonymously record demographic information on one side of the card and have their individual table assignments on the other side of the card.


3. Small Group Rounds. The process begins with the first of three 10 minute rounds of conversation for small groups seated around the table listed in “Round 1” on the back of their card. At the end of the 10 minutes, participants move to a different table listed as “Round 2” which is also repeated as “Round 3”. Tables are assigned randomly using a random number generator; however 1 of the subjects at each table should stay at the same table for all 3 rounds. This is helpful when managing the recorders and changing the table cloths between each round. Researchers/facilitators should go from table to table to make verify the participants are using the audio recorders correctly.


4. Questions. The researchers provide a guiding question in each round specially crafted for the specific context and desired purpose of the study. Each question builds upon the previous round’s question to allow for the conversations to move from the least to the most complex topics.


5. Harvest. After the small group rounds have been completed, the group reconvenes for a facilitated discussion. This provides richness to the project by combining thoughts from the small groups into a greater conversation and possibly a shared consensus. Effort should also be made to make and audio recording of this discussion.


After the conclusion of the harvest, special care must be made in handling the participant cards, audio recorders and paper tablecloth’s from the World Café. This is research data and should be treated as such with the utmost care to protect the rights of the subjects in the study.

Analyzing the data

This research project is a qualitative study and the data must be prepared appropriately for analysis. Audio recordings must be transcribed anonymously and analyzed through an appropriate coding system. The graphics depicted on the tablecloths should be captured through digital scanning and organized in a logical manner. Demographic data from the participant cards should be recorded in a database to allow the investigators to assign subject information to the appropriate tables in each round. Analysis of this accumulated data can provide an outstanding opportunity to gain greater insight into the topic by utilizing the shared expertise provided by the study participants.

Concluding comments

Conducting a World Café at a conference provides an excellent opportunity to capture the rich conversations that occur in these settings. Conducting this type of research requires prior planning with regard to the proposal submission, a grant application and getting appropriate ethical approvals. At the event, proper organization is essential to support the participants and to capture the data in the best way possible. This collaborative approach provides researchers the ability to capture, analyze and disseminate these conversations which supports clinical practice and may contribute to improved patient outcomes.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank co-investigators Professor Scott Reeves and Dr Simon Fletcher, Kingston University & St. George’s, University of London for their participation in this project. I would like to thank the organizers of All Together Better Health VIII for their cooperation.

References 

All Together Better Health. (2016). ATBH VIII. Retrieved from http://www.hls.brookes.ac.uk/atbh8


The World Cafe Community Foundation. (2016). the World Cafe. Retrieved from http://www.theworldcafe.com/