Interprofessional education, philosophy and conceptual frameworks

I received a copy of the following - Interprofessional Education in Wales: case studies in health and social care - July 2010, Editors: Clare Kell and Marion Helme (Health Sciences and Practice). Published by the HEA.


As per other HEA publications there are many papers here of great interest. One stood out at a first reading as in addition to the quote below Mark Edward's also refers to the need for an holistic approach, and this particular MSc. course providing a critical space.

UK Professionals are trained and educated in their own disciplines, learning their own unique and specialist knowledge for their chosen profession. Therefore, although each profession is well equipped for its singular contribution, they find their 'educational preparation a total mismatch for the complex, interactive world into which they graduate and practice' (Sullivan, 1998: 428). Sullivan's view reinforces the WLGA's concerns, that professional boundaries *demarcate* social professions (and others) from each other and that resistance to collaboration and co-operation on any meaningful level has been compounded by the historical development of the uni-professional training model. We need therefore to agree a uniting philosophy and *conceptual framework* that facilitates a dialogue between these professional disciplines and gives reasons for these discrete services to work together in providing effective inter-professional solutions to shared social problems. p.53. Edwards, M.L. (2010). * -- * My emphasis.

I do not merely want to hang word associations here on the blog line. But, I have wondered about how we demarcate the disciplines. This is a major question. In the rather incomplete, ill-formatted glossary I cite Resnik (2002) - A pragmatic approach to the Demarcation Problem. I would love to have the opportunity to explore this philosophical, scientific and disciplinary conundrum within the context of pantology in the 21st century (h2cm?).

On the new site a living glossary is a must - the terms we use often vary from context to context, professional to professional. Clearly (or opaquely) I cannot provide all the answers hence the need for a community and a (Drupal) module. ...

Mark L. Edwards, Case Study 7: Issues in collaboration between undergraduate professional qualifying programmes of youth work and social work. pp.47-55.

HEA, Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre: Room 3.12 Waterloo Bridge Wing, Franklin-Wilkins buildings, King's College London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH.

Resnik, D.B. (2002) A pragmatic approach to the Demarcation Problem, Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci., 31:2,249-267.

Related posts:

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2010/05/hea-mental-health-sig-h2cm-reflection.html

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2010/05/update-kings-college-london-mental.html

The health career model, reflection, curriculum development

There are many new insights and remembrances available in the content of -

Occasional Paper No 10 (PDF access)
Connecting Reflective Learning, Teaching and Assessment
October 2009 by Helen Bulpitt and Mary Deane

We tend to speak of reflection as if it is merely a case of being in the right place at the right time:
in front of a mirror or other reflective surface.

Among the issues raised in OP #10 (which I will expand and explore further) are:

• the need to embed reflection in learning, teaching and assessment at the curriculum design level;
• the existence of an optimal curriculum design that can foster effective critical reflection (Clouder, 2009);
• reflection to meet specific learning outcomes can be said to be 'reflection to order' (Dalley, Chap 2, 2009);

As this short list shows reflection is a complex and serious component and activity of learning. A central problem is in the assessment and marking of reflective writing (Deane, Chap 5, 2009; Dalley, Chap 6, 2009). Marking a piece of reflective writing what would we look for:

• Observation
• Structure
• Reasoning
• Critical review
• Argument
• Personal disclosure
  
• Writing?

There really is the basis for a paper here on the health career model, reflection and there on the horizon - curriculum development.

Image source:
http://www.reelcollectibles.co.nz/stargate.htm

HEA Mental Health SIG, h2cm & reflection

The HEA mental health SIG presentation yesterday on Hodges' model was very well received. The other sessions were also very interesting and of direct relevance to my role in the care of older adults and mental health. The other sessions were on national dementia strategy and a study of competencies, plus the use of a book club in student learning. I hope other opportunities will arise to spread word of the health career model at other events. The trip (British Museum and an hour in the National Portrait Gallery inc.), networking and dialogue that ensued was very enjoyable. The next meeting will be later in the year and may be in Glasgow, so check their site and I will see if I can post future details on W2tQ.

In addition to the potential of the model being recognised, I also had to defend some points and assumptions that I have carried for a long time:

• The Care Programme Approach and flexibility of community mental health nurses to employ the model;
• associating 'audiences' to specific care domains (as per the - dated - introductions to the model - click on the images);
• the level of the model - the fact it is 'high level'.
  

I say defend in the sense that I continue to hide behind the slogan: the website and this blog represent a call for research, evidence and verification of the model (I did this yesterday!).

Is my proselytizing virtually, to placement students and at events such as the HEA justified, or the result of over-valued idea? This model definitely has a role to play. It is one of many tools, in a way it is the toolbox.

Browsing the HEA website and other SIGs I found one devoted to reflection. As we wrapped up in the afternoon Charles Kasule (Communications & Resources Officer) brought in an occasional paper produced by the group:

Occasional Paper No 10 (PDF access)
Connecting Reflective Learning, Teaching and Assessment (250KB)
October 2009 by Helen Bulpitt and Mary Deane

This is a brief (pp.76) but very useful introductory reader on reflection. Reflection is central to the creation and application of the health career model being one of the original purposes. My presentation included a 15 minute powerpoint breather when we collectively reflected on dementia care across the model's care (knowledge) domains. I will read OP #10 and share my thoughts here over the coming months. Should anyone be interested in exploring reflection in theory, practice, or both please get in touch. Finally, I am very grateful to Bill Penson the mental health SIG facilitator for the slot and the HEA for making this and other occasional papers freely available. More to follow ...

Second IEEE Workshop on Interdisciplinary Research on E-health Services and Systems

Call for papers
Second IEEE Workshop on
Interdisciplinary Research on E-health Services and Systems

IREHSS 2010
June 14, 2010: Montreal, QC Canada

PAPER SUBMISSION EXTENDED DEADLINE: 6 March, 2010
************************************************************
(Edited for length please see website)

In the last few years advances in wearable computing, bioengineering, wireless sensors networks, mobile devices and wireless communications have paved the way to new definitions of e-health systems, moving from original telemedicine systems to the integration of existent specialized medical technologies with pervasive technologies. However, even more work on this area is needed to obtain significant results in improving the Quality of Life of patients and reducing medical errors and costs. First of all, a strict interaction and cooperation among medical specialists and ICT experts is necessary to define correct requirements fore-health systems. Then, in order to effectively design and deploy reliable E-health systems, a strong cooperation among several diverse research areas of ICT is necessary (i.e., bioengineering, wearable sensors, wireless communications, data fusion and processing, decision support systems and others). This is fundamental to make E-health systems a reality, satisfying main requirements of reliability and effectiveness both all the involved perspectives perspective.

IREHSS aims to provide a forum for the interaction of experts belonging to these different research areas, from wearable computing and ubiquitous connectivity to context-awareness, sensor data fusion, artificial
intelligence, expert systems, databases, security and privacy. The main objective is to provide a forum for the interaction of these multiple areas as an important chance to discuss and understand what aspects have to be considered to provide effective E-health systems.

Authors are invited to submit papers presenting new research related to E-health, not published or currently under review for another workshop, conference, or journal.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Wearable and Implantable sensors for healthcare
• Wireless communications in healthcare
• Service and device discovery
• Data fusion and context elaboration
• Privacy and security issues in healthcare
• Middleware for e-health
• Energy Efficiency in health monitoring
• Artificial intelligence and expert systems
• User interface, usability and acceptability of e-health systems
• Healthcare applications for clinicians
• Home monitoring and ambient assisted applications for healthcare
• Power Management and energy-efficient design in Wireless Body Area Networks
• System architecture and networking protocols for e-health systems
• Medical data analysis, measurements and management
• Modeling and performance evaluation
• Semantic Web in Healthcare
• Standards and frameworks

Paper submission for regular papers must be limited to 6 pages including text, figures, references and appendices. They should be organized in IEEE proceedings format, with a font size of at least 10pt. Papers exceeding the maximum length of 6 pages will be automatically rejected. The IEEE LaTeX and Microsoft Word templates, as well as related information, can be found at the IEEE Computer Society website:
http://www.computer.org/portal/site/cscps/index.jsp .

The submission will be entirely managed through EDAS (http://edas.info/N8548).

Important Dates:

Papers registration EXTENDED : March 3, 2010
Papers submission EXTENDED deadline: March 6, 2010
Acceptance Notification: April 5, 2010
Camera Ready deadline: April 20, 2010.

See http://www.irehss.org/irehss2010/ for additional information or
contact the workshop organizers at irehss2010-chairs at iit.cnr.it .

Publicity Chair:
Eleonora Borgia, IIT-CNR, Italy

Additional links:

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation (JNER, http://jneuroengrehab.com )

IEEE Int. Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM 2010)