Abstract
Introduction:The educational needs of the health and social care workforce for delivering effective integrated care are important. This paper reports on the development, pilot and evaluation of an interprofessional simulation course, which aimed to support integrated care models for care transitions for older people from hospital to home.Theory and methods:The course development was informed by a literature review and a scoping exercise with the health and social care workforce. The course ran six times and was attended by health and social care professionals from hospital and community (n = 49). The evaluation aimed to elicit staff perceptions of their learning about care transfers of older people and to explore application of learning into practice and perceived outcomes. The study used a sequential mixed method design with questionnaires completed pre (n = 44) and post (n = 47) course and interviews (n = 9) 2–5 months later.Results:Participants evaluated interprofessional simulation as a successful strategy. Post-course, participants identified learning points and at the interviews, similar themes with examples of application in practice were: Understanding individual needs and empathy; Communicating with patients and families; Interprofessional working; Working across settings to achieve effective care transitions.Conclusions and discussion:An interprofessional simulation course successfully brought together health and social care professionals across settings to develop integrated care skills and improve care transitions for older people with complex needs from hospital to home.
Highlights
The educational needs of the health and social care workforce for delivering effective integrated care are important
This paper contributes by providing a detailed account of the development, implementatiion and evaluation of an interprofessional simulation course, to support integrated care initiatives to improve care transitions for older people with complex needs
A further strength was the sequential approach which captured staff perceptions of their learning prior to attendance on the course, upon immediate completion and after they had applied their learning in practice, when planning care transfers for older people
Summary
The educational needs of the health and social care workforce for delivering effective integrated care are important. This paper reports on the development, pilot and evaluation of an interprofessional simulation course, which aimed to support integrated care models for care transitions for older people from hospital to home. Post-course, participants identified learning points and at the interviews, similar themes with examples of application in practice were: Understanding individual needs and empathy; Communicating with patients and families; Interprofessional working; Working across settings to achieve effective care transitions. Conclusions and discussion: An interprofessional simulation course successfully brought together health and social care professionals across settings to develop integrated care skills and improve care transitions for older people with complex needs from hospital to home. The project presented in this paper focused on the pilot of an interprofessional simulation course as an educational intervention to support integrated care initiatives for improving care transitions for older people with complex needs from hospital to home. Transitional care has been defined as a set of actions ensuring the coordination and continuity of healthcare as patients transfer through different settings and different levels of care within the same setting [11, 12] The quality of care related to transitions is important [12], as people are more vulnerable to health
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