Interprofessional Student Team represents Dalhousie at the National Health Care Team Challenge

April 13, 2012 dkilpatr Leave a Comment

Ian MacIntyre (Dentistry), Laura Jewell (Health Admin.), Alison Taylor (Physiotherapy), Jennifer Egan (Human Communication Disorders), Elycia McKeand (Nursing), Ashley LeClerc (Health Sciences), Lori Walsh (Occupational Therapy)

The newly reinstated Dalhousie Health Sciences Students Association executive recently represented Dalhousie University at the National Health Sciences Students Association Conference held in Waterloo, Ontario. The conference provided the opportunity to hear inspirational and informative speakers, teach delegates how to sustain a council at their university, watch students from the host university perform emergency situation simulations (including a birthing, car fire, ice rescue and smoke inhalation), network with other delegates, and participate in a Health Care Team Challenge, among others. With regards to the Health Care Team Challenge, the students were given a brief overview of a patient case prior to attending the conference. At the conference, each team offered their prognosis of the case in a brief five-minute presentation. Once all teams had presented, the teams were provided with more information about the case and were then required to formulate a treatment plan for the patient. The Health Care Team Challenge was an excellent interprofessional learning experience. It gave students an opportunity to further understand the roles of various professions while learning how to collaborate to share knowledge and perspectives on patient care and communicate what they perceive as important in a respectful manner. The executive is currently developing a proposal to be able to host an internal Dalhousie Health Care Team Challenge in early 2013.

KABAM – Helping Seniors Stay Active

March 21, 2012 Trudi Smith Leave a Comment

Participants in the KABAM activity program at Middleton Adult Day Program.

What better way for students to learn about working together as an interprofessional team than with an interprofessional experience (IPE) during their fieldwork placements? At Soldiers Memorial Hospital (SMH) in Middleton, NS, Kristin Crocker, an Occupational Therapy student at Dalhousie University, and Mark Ponikvar, a Therapeutic Recreation Assistant student at Nova Scotia Community College, had the opportunity to complete an IPE project of their choice to learn more about each other’s professions and how they can work together to benefit their clients. Not only did this project reflect the value of IPE in the curriculum for Dalhousie University and the special agency project for NSCC, but it also served as the first formal IPE project at Soldiers Memorial Hospital.

The project that was created for this IPE is called the Keeping Active Bodies And Minds (KABAM) Activity Program. The students tailored this program to meet the needs of seniors who are looking for a way to stay healthy in a fun and unique way. The program consists of a warm up activity, six stations with a different activity at each, and a cool down activity. The activities were designed to target commonly used muscle groups and areas of the brain to maintain or improve the participants’ general level of functioning. The stations alternate from a body activity to a mind activity; this allows participants the opportunity to rest their body at every other station while they exercise their mind. Each copy of the program includes all materials necessary for each activity, and the only additional equipment required is a chair for each participant for every activity. Music is recommended to add excitement to the warm up activity and a sense of relaxation to the cool down activity. Each participant is provided with an activity record sheet at the end of the program to track their individual progress. Participants are also encouraged to celebrate the completion of each activity by fist pumping and cheering “KABAM!”

One significant feature of the program is its flexibility to be used with a wide range of participants in a variety of settings. Not only does each activity include two modifications to increase or decrease its level of difficulty, but the stations can also be set up in any way to meet the level of functioning of the participants. For example, for less mobile participants, all stations can be completed in one location; for more mobile participants, each station can be set up in a different location to promote exercise through walking from one station to the next.

The program was presented to two different groups: first on the Mayflower Alternate Level of Care Unit at SMH, and then at the Middleton Adult Day Program. Since then, the program has also been used on the Veteran’s Unit at SMH, and has been continued on a weekly basis at the Middleton Adult Day Program. Plans have also been made to trial the program at the Wickwire Assisted Living Residence in Wolfville, NS in the near future. The program has been noted to be easy to implement by users, and enjoyable by the majority of participants. An added social benefit has been observed with the group approach to completing the activities, and individual level of functioning can also be observed with continued implementation of the program.

The outcomes of this project were presented to the Seniors LINCS – Living Independently with Community Supports team. Overall, the KABAM Activity Program was successful on many accounts, as a student IPE project and as a new activity resource for a variety of programmers who work with seniors. Kristin and Mark would like to thank all members of the Seniors LINCS team, their fieldwork preceptors at SMH, and all other staff and participants who helped make the project a success with their participation, constructive feedback, and support.

If you would like more information on the KABAM Activity Program, please contact Kristin Crocker and Mark Ponikvar at kabamactivityprogram@gmail.com .

Submitted by Kristin Crocker (MSc OT Student), and

Mark Ponkivar, TRA Student – Nova Scotia Community College

Collaborative Learning in Long-Term Care

October 25, 2011 Trudi Smith Leave a Comment

Members of the IP student team deliver their final presentation at Maplestone.

In 2010, Shannex and Dalhousie University joined to create the first academic nursing home in Atlantic Canada. Through collaboration among health professionals, researchers, educators, learners, clients and their families, the Maplestone Collaborative Learning Centre (CLC) seeks to enhance the preparation of new health professionals for collaborative practice in long term care and to identify and address current issues in long term care policy and practice.

Located at Maplestone Enhanced Care, an 87-bed Shannex facility in Halifax, the Collaborative Learning Centre was made possible through formal partnership agreements with Dalhousie’s Department of Family Medicine and Faculty of Health Professions, both signed in 2010. The Family Medicine partnership involves academic attending physicians and first year Family Medicine residents who provide ongoing medical care to all Maplestone clients. The Health Professions partnership has integrated researchers, educators and learners from professions with established roles in long term care (LTC) in Nova Scotia (such as nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy and social work) and those with developing roles in this sector (such as audiology, nurse practitioner and speech language pathology).

Together, CLC partners have created an interprofessional learning environment for all health professions that will lead a positive change in attitude and culture towards LTC and care of the elderly and set the standard for client-directed, collaborative care by:

enhancing client care and service delivery;
fostering greater interest in and understanding of practice in LTC;
equipping participants with the competencies necessary for interprofessional collaboration; and
contributing to the continuing care and education sectors through the development and integration of relevant research opportunities.

To date, over 160 learners from 12 professions have completed rotations through the CLC and there hae been two structured interprofessional education (IPE) placements. Currently, a team development grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is supporting the identification of collaborative research priorities.

Feedback from learners, Maplestone clients, families and staff to date has been overwhelmingly positive: “There’s so much overlap between the professions that we’ve learned that to work independently isn’t really beneficial…that if we work as a collaborative team we can actually be more beneficial and effective for the client’s care.” Faculty of Health Professions Student, 2011.

By:

Anne Godden-Webster, Interprofessional Experience Coordinator, Faculty of Health Professions
Vonda Hayes, Professor and Education Coordinator, Department of Family Medicine
Althea Lacas, Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine
Catherine MacPherson, Project Manager, Collaborative Learning Centre, Maplestone Enhanced Care

Aboriginal Health and Healing

August 3, 2011 Trudi Smith Leave a Comment

: Dr. Debbie Martin (Nick Pearce photo)

Starting this Fall, Dr. Debbie Martin (School of Health and Human Performance) will be teaching the course “IPHE 2201 – Introduction to Aboriginal Peoples’ Health and Healing.” The course, open to all undergraduate students in the Faculty of Health Professions, will provide an opportunity to learn about Aboriginal perspectives regarding health, as well as about the multiple and complex challenges facing Aboriginal peoples with respect to key health issues such as; health and social inequities, the epidemiology of disease and culturally appropriate service provision.

In a recent Global Martimes interview, Dr. Martin said that one aim of the course is to help students look at health issues from an indigenous perspective, and to provide health care with that angle in mind, further stating, “There are different ways of approaching health and health care that we don’t often think about.”

Inter-Professional Health Care Education Building

July 4, 2011 Trudi Smith Leave a Comment

: An artist’s rendering of the new building

A new building planned for Dalhousie’s Carleton campus aims to be common ground for students from the Faculties of Dentistry, Medicine and the Health Professions—a place where an aspiring nurse, social worker and dental hygienist could get together for coffee; where a future physician, occupational therapist and pharmacist could work on a simulated medical emergency; where a would-be coach, radiological technologist, dentist and cardiologist could meet and attend a lecture.

In so doing, the deans of those three faculties believe the building—and the focus it will bring to inter-professional learning—has the power to revolutionize health-care education at Dalhousie.

To learn more, read the DalNews story.

Archives for interprofessional education