Interprofessional Education (IPE) in Action - What we are up to

With over 2,500 full time students training in 17 different health sciences programs at George Brown, we can offer students an exciting range of interprofessional education opportunities. These IPE experiences range from collaborative learning in the classroom to collaborative practice in clinic (both our own Controlled Applied Learning Environments and off-campus field placements). All of these present exciting opportunities for our health sciences students to learn with, from and about each other.

Below we present some great examples of recent IPE student experiences. We will continue to use this space to describe what we are doing (both new and continued IPE experiences) and how these IPE experiences have helped our students to achieve our four IPE learning outcomes:

1. Appraise the relationship between one’s own profession and the background, scope and roles of other healthcare professionals.
   
   
2. Evaluate one’s ability to work in a team.
   
   
3. Participate collaboratively as a health team member to support patients’ / clients' achievement of their expected health outcomes.
   
   
4. Assess the impact of the broader legislative and ethical framework on interprofessional practice.

GSSC 1053: Collaboration - The Future of Health Care

GSSC 1053 is our first formal IPE course. The course provides students with a broad overview of the health care system and an understanding of collaboration and teamwork among health care providers. Working with students of other professions, students learn about each others’ disciplines and about other health care practitioners with whom they will work after graduation.

Through interprofessional team assignments, students will learn about and apply the theories of teamwork, conflict resolution and collaborative practice and will have the opportunity to reflect on their own, and others’ participation and contributions to teamwork. Offered every semester since 2007, this 14-week course employs Michaelsen's Team Based Learning model.

GSSC 1053 - What have students said about this course?

“This course taught me to work better in teams by being more patient and understanding of everyone’s situation. I learned a lot especially from my classmates.”

“During my experience in this course, I have learned that teamwork is an essential component within any field of specialization and collaborative skills enhance successful outcomes”.

“The experiences I had working within a team along with the information I learned from the course about team concepts, communication and feedback, leadership, conflict resolution and collaborative patient-centred practice have helped me gain a greater understanding of team dynamics”.

Health Promotion Hub: The Community Learning Centre for Healthy Living

Based at our Interprofessional Learning Clinic at Casa Loma Campus, the Health Promotion Hubprovides a unique interprofessional applied learning experience in the practice of health promotion. Initiated in September 2007, the health promotion hub supports the community clinical / field placement requirements of students from various programs. In the 2008-09 academic year, our health promotion teams included students from our Nursing, Dental Hygiene, Fitness & Lifestyle Management, Hearing Instrument Specialist, Health Information Management, Social Service Worker, Activation-Gerontology programs and Medicine (through our relationship with the Fitzgerald Academy at St. Michael’s Hospital). This supervised field experience supports collaboration and interprofessional student learning, applied practice and scholarly research related to community-based health promotion.

Health Promotion - What have students said about this experience?

“I was able to share my knowledge with other students as well as learn what they know. This placement allowed me to look at different points of view in the health care field”.

“It was great to have hands-on experience in creating and planning health promotion programs”.

“I learned about what other health professionals are learning in school”.

Learning To Care Together – A unique IPE partnership

Learning To Care Together (LTCT) is a three-year provincially funded project, involving a unique collaboration between George Brown College and Revera Inc. (formerly Retirement Residences Real Estate Investment Trust), operator of long term care and retirement living residences across North America. Our goal is to create an innovative interprofessional education partnership including preceptored interprofessional field placements for our students at Revera residences and new interprofessional curriculum in key areas related to the care of seniors.

This project has received provincial funding over three years through the Interprofessional Health Education Innovation Fund, co-sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Learn more about this exciting project.

An Innovative Collaboration Between Dental Hygiene and Bachelor of Science in Nursing: "Oral Health and Blood Pressure Initiatives"

Each year since 2006-07, the faculties of the BScN Nursing and Dental Hygiene programs have collaborated to provide their students with the unique opportunity to work together across shared clinical skills sets. Under the guidance of faculty mentors, second year BScN students teach first year Dental Hygiene students to take manual blood pressures. Second year Dental Hygiene students then teach first year BScN students to perform at beside a basic oral assessment and daily oral care procedures for mentally healthy patients. This innovative interprofessional education activity allows not only for the students to learn a new skill, but creates a learning environment in which students can share information about their programs and their professions. Learn more about Oral Health and Blood Pressure Initiatives program .

View a conference poster about this Dental Hygiene-Nursing Initiative.

Other IPE Activities:

• View a video presentation, starring our students, about the Interprofessional Edge at the Centre for Health Sciences at George Brown College
  
  
• IPE in Action - Excellence in Peer Leadership Award, May 30, 2007
  
  
• Interprofessional Education (IPE) in Action - Intervenor for Deaf-Blind Persons teaches Hearing Instrument Specialists, March 29, 2007
  
  
• Hearing Protection for Dental Hygienists, February 21, 2007
  
  
• Community Services for Children with Hearing Loss, January 30, 2007
  
  
• Elsevier Publishers 3rd Annual Bed Making Challenge, November 30, 2006
  
  
• Integrated Treatment Plan Pilot Project 2005-2006

For further information please contact:
Gary Kapelus, Professor and Coordinator, Interprofessional Education,
Email:

Return to: Interprofessional Education (IPE) documents

Return to: Interprofessional Education (IPE) at George Brown College

*Note: .pdf files require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print them. If you don't have Acrobat Reader, you can get it here free.

Revised: January 28, 2010