The Partnered Learning Project
IPC Team Resource Kit:
An Aid to Designing and Implementing Interprofessional Collaboration Workshops for Clinical Healthcare Teams
8.0 Feedback and Follow-up
Process | Materials | Experience/Lessons | Ongoing Challenges
At the time the PLP study took place, only one of the three partner institutions had an established IPE program with a designated IPE leadership position. Healthcare teams in the other two organizations were less accustomed to being observed for their interprofessional collaboration practices and expressed a strong interest in receiving feedback from the PLP team. During the workshop participants were invited to consider their future opportunities for further discussion or applications of the IPC material in their daily work setting. Our experience suggested that participants needed the IPC workshop learning activities to be grounded by some form of participant feedback and educational follow-up.
- Although the initial PLP focus was on data gathering for future scholarly work, early in the project clinical teams requested feedback from the PLP staff on their observed team practices. In response to these requests the project team offered each participant team an in-person feedback session.
- Team feedback sessions were scheduled near the end of the project to maximize information presenters could draw upon. The 30-45 minute sessions included some specifics about observed strengths and team-identified areas for potential growth, as well as some comparative observations across the range of participating teams. While data analysis was not complete at the time the feedback sessions were held, some early data trends that were being explored were described in general terms. The team feedback sessions ended by inviting final comments and feedback from the clinical team members to the project staff.
- Over the course of the project the Steering Committee identified a number of lessons concerning effective implementation of an IPC/IPE project. Since each of the partner organizations planned to follow-up this project in its own manner, a short report was produced to document these lessons for future follow-up. These reports included both general and institutionally specific lessons and examples. Distribution of these reports followed regular communication practices within each institution.
- The PLP staff used a semi-structured format to guide the presentation of feedback information. A summary handout of the project was distributed. The feedback included both quantitative and qualitative information and was clearly identified as being a limited “snapshot” perspective. Staff were told where project-related resources and articles would be posted on the internet as they reached completion.
- The report designed to capture the educational lessons specific to the partner organizations included some customization of content, where this seemed appropriate.
- Staff participants in the IPC workshops were very interested in getting feedback from the project team, particularly in those institutions which did not have an established IPC/IPE program or staff lead position.
- Additional thoughts about what the organization could do to support team IPC surfaced when staff were interviewed several weeks after the workshop.
- In post-workshop interviews, participants indicated that being exposed to the language and concepts of IPE was useful and facilitated their continued thinking about this subject.
- Producing PLP feedback reports helped ensure valuable insights about implementing IPC learning activities would continue to be available to educators within each institution after the PLP team had disbanded.
- Like the scheduling of the workshops, arranging a time and place when all interested members of a clinical team are available to attend a feedback session can be challenging.
- In a particular case where the workshop generated a growing interest in examining the team’s interprofessional collaboration practices, team members began to consider others who they would have liked to include in the discussions. Staff requested other health professionals (who had not been involved with the study activities to this point) be invited to the feedback session. This highlights that when the learning aims include stimulating reflective practice, it is importance to consider ways of supporting participants to continue and expand the dialogue, even in the case of time-limited projects.
