Transforming Collaboration in Health Professionals Education and Training

Background: An increased specialization in the health professions, demands for continuity, and higher quality of patient care have highlighted the needs for a stronger interprofessional collaboration and practice in the health care system of today. Based on the assumption that a strong interprofessional collaboration in clinical practice is formed by health professionals’ education and training, the health professional education in Denmark has been revised in 2016. The concept of interprofessional collaboration is now incorporated into professional programs to a greater extent now than before. In the implementation process of the education reforms, post graduate courses for experienced clinical nurse supervisors have been completed including themes as interprofessional collaboration, relational coordination, and the concept of professional identity.
Purpose: The goals of these courses were to pay attention to the interprofessional learning spaces in the clinical practice, to raise awareness of the clinical nurse supervisors’ important role in forming the professional identity of the nursing students, and thereby support an improvement of the nursing students’ skills for building relationships, communication and collaboration.
Teaching methods: A post graduate course with a duration of four days was designed, including one day dedicated to themes as interprofessional collaboration, relational coordination, and the concept of professional identity. The theory of relational coordination was presented, and the participants were invited to analyse their current state of the interprofessional collaboration using relational mapping and develop proposal for improving the interprofessional collaboration regarding education and training in clinical practice.
Results: In total 330 experienced clinical nurse supervisors have participated in the 14 post graduate courses completed in the period from April 2017 to January 2019. When evaluating the course, the participants stated that relational mapping based on the theory of relational coordination had been an eye-opener in understanding the challenges of collaboration regarding education and training in clinical practice and facilitated the drafting of proposals for improvement.
Implications: The relational mapping analyses provided by the participants at the courses have identified collaboration challenges and highlighted a need for improvement of cross-sectional collaboration between the nursing school and the hospital units. A cross-sectional improvement project using relational coordination theory and methods is therefore now in the pipeline focusing on strengthening the cross-sectional collaboration between teachers at the nursing school, clinical nurse supervisors at the hospital units, and nursing students.