Developing a Competent Workforce for Integrated Health and Social Care: What Does It Take?

Enhancing Care Transitions for Older People through Interprofessional Simulation: A Mixed Method Evaluation

“…Therefore, the health and social care professionals who deliver integrated care in clinical practice are of central importance yet, integrated care initiatives have not always recognized and addressed the associated educational needs of the health and social care workforce [8]. The starting point for the current project was an identified need to educate healthcare professionals who were involved in care transitions from hospital to home for older people with complex needs, in a virtual integrated care system.…”

“…Collaboration is a complex process that presents many challenges [62] but it is increasingly understood as an interpersonal process that requires trust, mutual respect and effective communication [1963], with regular dialogue between the professionals involved [6415]. Similarly, for successful integrated care, there is a need to create trust and mutual respect between professionals [8] and to recognise the importance of issues such as relationship building and fostering an environment that supports new collaborations and ways of working [7]. …”

“…There are a range of definitions of integrated care but Goodwin [7] argued for a person-centred perspective, with integrated care being viewed as ‘an overarching term for a broad and multi-component set of ideas and principles that seek to better co-ordinate care around people’s needs’. Stein [8] identified that everyone involved in delivering integrated care needs to attain further competencies, including both technical and behavioural competencies that go beyond those traditionally taught and which require social and emotional intelligence, but that few integrated care initiatives have invested in the education that staff need to deliver integrated, people-centred care. 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.…”

Building Competencies for Integrated Care: Defining the Landscape

“…They define the changing roles and responsibilities of the professional from a novice learner through to a senior mentor and quality assurer of integrated care. This continuous learning cycle [2] should be supported by professional (e.g., standards, evidencebased practice), organizational (e.g., CPE programmes as integral part of job profile) and system functions (e.g., accreditation, regulatory frameworks). In common with the broader integrated care transformation learning needs to happen on all levels.…”

“…We now need to understand how to reflect these dimensions within the practices of those who must implement them. This will require combining our knowledge of how to achieve implementation of integrated care, with our knowledge of professional behaviour to develop a clearer definition of competencies for integrated care [2]. Having done so we can then create education approaches and programmes which enable the current and future workforce to practice integrated care.…”