Interprofessional training in health sciences education has a lasting impact on practice, study shows

Geriatrics specialists have lengthy recognized that collaboration is vital to delivering high quality, patient-centered care to older adults.

That’s why USC’s Interprofessional Education and Collaboration for Geriatrics (IECG) trains as much as 150 college students yearly from seven well being professions to show the significance of teamwork in assembly the advanced wants of the aged.

Now, a research revealed within the Journal of Interprofessional Care highlights the long-term affect of IECG on USC well being sciences graduates.

Researchers surveyed graduates one to a few years after finishing IECG to evaluate how this system influenced their follow. The findings have been important: 81% of the graduates labored on interprofessional groups, 80% reported that IECG had a serious affect on their follow, and all confirmed they recurrently used the evaluation instruments discovered in this system.

“We’ve actually seen over the past decade that this program persistently improves well being career graduate college students’ interprofessional information and attitudes and in addition helps them put together them for collaborative follow,” stated Dawn Joosten-Hagye, first creator on the research and professor of social work on the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

“This is likely one of the first research to truly take a look at how college students maintain their interprofessional schooling coaching.”

The program was initiated 14 years in the past by research co-author Jo Marie Reilly, a professor of scientific household drugs on the Keck School of Medicine of USC, who noticed the necessity for an modern coaching mannequin targeted on the advanced well being care wants of older adults.

The collaborative effort has since included college students from dentistry, drugs, occupational remedy, pharmacy, bodily remedy, gerontology, psychology, and social work.

Looking ahead, the research’s authors imagine the IECG mannequin might be tailored to handle the wants of different populations with advanced well being care wants, resembling individuals with disabilities, most cancers sufferers, and youngsters.