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August 08, 2006 HEALTH CANADA FUNDS INTER-PROFESSIONAL HEALTH EDUCATION INITIATIVE IN NEW BRUNSWICK (Saint John) - Health Canada funding will allow the University of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Community College, Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Medicine and the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation (AHSC) to develop and evaluate new education models to improve collaboration and the quality of care provided by health care professionals. The $750,000 will be used over a two-year period to design a curriculum to support the emerging field of inter-professional education and to familiarize educators about inter-professional practices. The Interprofessional Education for Collaborative Patient Centered Practice Initiative is co-chaired by Keith De’Bell of UNB Saint John and Barbara McGill of the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation and work on the initiative is already underway. The initiative seeks to change the way health providers are educated in New Brunswick to ensure they have the necessary knowledge and training to work effectively in interprofessional teams within the evolving health care system. Collaborative patient-centered practice is designed to promote the active participation of a variety of health care disciplines and respect the contributions of all providers. Health Canada notes a growing consensus that interprofessional collaborative patient-centered practice will provide a better patient-care experience and professional work environment for health care providers. "Health human resources is one of the cornerstones of a Patient Wait Times Guarantee," said the Honorable Tony Clement, Federal Minister of Health. "We need to make sure that we have the proper supply and distribution of doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the system and, through collaborative teams, that their combined knowledge and skills are used to improve patient care. I wish the team at the University of New Brunswick, and its partners, every success in developing new interprofessional education models for collaborative patient-centered practice that will benefit patients, health professionals, and, ultimately, all Canadians." Dr. Keith De’Bell, Special Advisor to the President of UNB and Vice-President (Saint John) on Health Care Education and Research, echoes the Minister as the partnership begins it work, “The aim of the inter-professional team approach is to provide more effective health care centred on the needs of patients. What better way to conduct this kind of initiative than to build an inter-professional team from UNB Saint John, UNB Fredericton, NBCC, Dalhousie University and the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation.” The initiative will take into account New Brunswick’s specific health care environment and will help university, college and health-care providers to mentor students in inter-professional practices. Students will benefit through the development of an inter-professional experience as well as the integration of related materials into the curriculum. Training will also be made available to current health care practitioners who want to include inter-professional education as part of their professional continuing education programs. “Our province’s health care educators and professionals have worked very well together to advance health care education,” said Barbara McGill, Vice-President (Community) and Chief Nursing Officer at the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation. “We must continue to combine our resources to ensure our medical, nursing, and health sciences students, as well as our medical residents currently training in the province, are exposed to the latest health care practices, such as inter-professional activities.” The initiative recognizes the importance of the patient experience in the development of the program and will pay close attention to the input of patients during the development of the curriculum. Phase I of the project, a literature review, is already underway with four phases expected to be complete by June of 2008. Phase II will include the development of workshops and curriculum, Phase III will be implementation of the curriculum and Phase IV will be a final report along with conference presentations and publications. An evaluation process will be used to identify better practices for interprofessional education.
Steering Committee Members For more information on the initiative please contact Keith De’Bell at 648-5577
Contact:
Health Canada Contact:
New Brunswick Community College Contact:
New Brunswick Community College Contact:
Dalhousie University Contact: Copyright © 2006 Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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