Building professional relationships in interprofessional events

Introduction

Interprofessional teams are foundational to high quality healthcare, and IPE events like SITEs (Skills for Interprofessional Team Effectiveness) and Real People, Real Experiences are opportunities for learners to work together in a less hectic environment before meeting as practicing professionals in the “real world.” Working with future colleagues from other health professions in IPE events is an important opportunity to learn about other programs and professions, to share with others about your program and chosen profession, and, perhaps most importantly, build relationships across programs and professions.

First Impressions

We all know that first impressions matter.^{[1] [2]} Within milli-seconds of “meeting” whether in person or virtually, we form opinions about others–and others form opinions about us. Often first impressions linger regardless of accuracy, so making a good first impression in an IPE event is important.^[3] You are not only making a “first impression” about yourself but also for:

• Your program
• Your college
• Your instructors
• Your institution and
• Your chosen future profession

You are connecting with others who you might someday work with as a professional member of the team or a patient, client, family member or close one in the circle of care. IPE events are designed for you to step up and be a practicing professional in this team setting, to be the kind of team member you would want to work with, and to treat this as professionally as you intend to practice.

The First Time

Take a moment to recall the first time you traveled to a different country, started in a new program or job, met a new person, joined a new sports team, or went to a new class on the first day. Remember that combination of nervousness and apprehension, and anticipation and excitement? Then recall how it became “normal” and more comfortable over time.

No matter how much you prepare, there is just no way to get around a “first-time” except by working through it. That said, this post provides information to successfully navigate your first IPE event.^[4] Think travel guide, course catalog, or on-boarding training manual.^[5] 😉

But First…

Generally learners participate in IPE events as part of their academic requirements. Programs require learners to participate in IPE for several reasons:

(1) Participating in interprofessional education is an accreditation requirement for many programs and (2) “In the dynamic, ever-changing, and complex world of healthcare, effective teamwork is essential for high-quality patient care, improving patient outcomes, and ensuring a positive work environment.”^[6] Developing and practicing teamwork skills with future colleagues helps prepare learners for practice in a less stressful and more controlled environment.

(3) Future practitioners come to understand their roles on health care teams by working together on team tasks with shared goals.

In practice, the team goal is patient care. In IPE events, the shared goal is to practice team skills by working on shared tasks together. In the academic environment, shared team tasks include things like care plans, recommendations, action plans, resource packages, etc.

To summarize, in IPE events, participants have the opportunity to:

• Build professional relationships
• Think “team” in order to provide more integrated and holistic patient care
• Practice with future professional colleagues in a team setting
• Learn with, about, and from one another
• Work on shared team tasks with future professional colleagues
• Practice interprofessional skills related to the Six CIHC Interprofessional Competency Domains and durable skills while working on team tasks
• Conscientiously and professionally represent themselves and their instructors, their programs, colleges and institutions, and their future professions.

What to Expect

Each IPE event has a certain time allotted to it. For example, each SITE event is either a 4-hour commitment over 2 weeks or a 6-hour commitment over 3 weeks. Real People, Real Experiences events are 90 minutes in one week. Resources, submissions, and team tasks are appropriately scoped for the time allotted per week. IPE events can be taken in any order. There are no large-group synchronous sessions in SITE or Real People events. The only synchronous learning activities are the team tasks which team members negotiate and decide on–the when and how to meet to complete these team tasks during the event week.

NOTE: When/if meeting virtually, please choose a meeting platform that has video capability^[7] because the expectation is that team members meet together virtually or in-person to complete all team tasks.^[8] After being on the same team, you should be able to recognize your team members if you run into them outside of the IPE event.

On the Thursday before the event begins, you receive a welcome email from the IPE team to remind you that the event is coming up. Your instructor/ IPE program lead is cc’d in this and all other emails. Sometimes you will get a head-start resource handout with this email.

Events begin at 09:00 Monday mornings and conclude Friday afternoons at 17:00.^[9] Events have both individual and team activities. You manage the asynchronous individual tasks and synchronous team tasks in ways that fit your schedules.

Contact information for your teammates is available in the event card at 09:00 on Monday morning when the event goes live.  You will work in a team with one, two, or three other learners in all IPE events.^[10] We encourage you to connect early in the week to negotiate the day, time, and place for your meeting(s). Reach out to team members as early as possible on the day the event opens. This is a great chance to practice leadership skills!

NOTE: If you happen to have an unresponsive team member, please notify us promptly and we will follow up.

Thoroughly read all instructions activity by activity. Use submissions as a guide through the event. The instructions are guidelines and are intentionally ambiguous to give you and your team opportunities for independent thought and discussion. There are no “wrong answers,” but there should be honest and truthful submissions that reflect your experiences. The most important part of the event is for you to get to know one another as you work together.

How IPE Events Run

“Smoothly” is the short answer. 😉

Thousands of learners like you have successfully completed SITE & Real People events! (And we are 98 to 100% confident you will too.)

All IPE events have been developed, and regularly reviewed by interprofessional teams of faculty, instructors, staff, and learner colleagues–interprofessional development teams building events for interprofessional teams. 😊

Centrally facilitated IPE events are learner-managed through the InterProfessional Education Competency Tracker (IPECT) platform.^[11] IPECT acts as the virtual event facilitator. You and your teammates work through the event on your own by doing the activities as outlined. Think of doing activities and submissions in the order provided like following route guidance to a new destination. By working autonomously in small teams, participants have the opportunity to practice durable skills^[12] such as leadership, time management, negotiation, and collaborative decision-making.

Event cards in IPECT hold all instructions, resources, materials, submissions, tasks, time recommendations, and team member contacts for events. IPECT also acts as an IPE e-portfolio, tracks participants’ interprofessional learning experiences, provides resources, sends out announcements, and offers quizzes and challenges.

If you want to become familiar with how an IPE  event is facilitated in IPECT works before an event begins, feel free to run through our 5-minute event sample: 🌟 Explore on Your Own: Introduction to IPECT-Facilitated Events. You can find it in the Events in IPECT.

Getting Started and Wrapping Up

To log into IPECT, you use your NSID (or your registered email if you are a non-USask participant) and follow the prompts.^[13] If you need help, please watch the “How to log in to the IPECT app” video tutorial. You can find more IPECT tutorial videos here or under the Resources tab in IPECT once you have logged into the platform. 

If you are required to provide “evidence of completion” to your instructor at the end of this event, this video provides instructions on how to download a progress report from IPECT. You can also easily create a pdf of your IPECT submissions.

Coaching for Successful Completion

Throughout the event, our team watches behind the scenes. If we see that you haven’t started, we send “nudges” usually sometime on Wednesday. We also look for “placeholders” or missed submissions and inconsistencies in team member submissions and timelines. Additionally, if we see you have not yet completed the event, we send reminders to complete the event on the Monday following the event closing date. We call this “coaching for successful completion.”

Fun fact: The successful completion rate of all IPE events facilitated in IPECT over the past five years is between 98 and 100%! 🎉

To summarize...

Participating in an IPE event is a chance to be the professional NOW you  soon will be. NOW is the time to make a great first impression with future professional colleagues, use entry-to-practice professional skills, and create social capital. We invite you to take advantage of IPE events to be an effective team member on a high functioning team NOW. Do your part to make this team a high-functioning team. Strive to make a good first impression with your colleagues.[14] Be a great representative for your program, your college, your instructor, your institution, your profession–and yourself. Be the kind of professional, dedicated, accountable, and responsible present team member who others want to work with.

For more information on SITEs check out The What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How of SITEs. For more on Real People, Real Experiences event check out Real People, Real Experiences.

If you have any questions/challenges, use the “Contact Event Coordinator” in the event card in IPECT or email Dr. Getahun Lombamo, IPE Program Coordinator. 

^[1] Make a good first impression: Expert tips for showing up at your best (~17 minute read) You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression (~2 minute read)

^[2] We often use emojis. 🙂We code events with different emojis to make them easy to spot in your inbox. We use them to add color to plain text and to convey the friendly collegial feeling we have towards participants.

^[3] And you know how people can sometimes generalize and stereotype and gossip?!

^[4] For additional information on what to expect from an IPECT-facilitated event–like SITEs, you can also watch this 3 minute video.

^[5] You can also do 🌟 Explore on Your Own: Introduction to IPECT-Facilitated Events. You can find it in the Events in IPECT. It takes about 5 minutes and you’ll get a sense of how an event flows.

^[6] Why Teamwork Matters: Part 1: Collaboratively Building High-Quality Healthcare, Why Teamwork Matters Part 2: Preparing to be an Effective Team Member

^[7] Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet are examples of platforms with this capability.

^[8] As stated in the activity instructions, teams decide when and how to meet together at the same time to complete team tasks, taking advantage of the synchronous meeting time to get to know one another and practice skills while completing team tasks.

^[9] We encourage you to complete the event during this time but if this is not possible, you can still access the event card in Past events to complete.

^[10] Teams are kept small to facilitate deeper conversation and contribution, increase individual and team accountability, and to make it easier to coordinate meeting times.

^[11] IPECT is a learning management platform especially designed for IPE. You can learn more about IPECT here USask Health Sciences IPE webpage, here Facilitating and Promoting Interprofessional Collaboration using IPECT and here The What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How of SITEs

^[12] For more on durable skills, please see Durable Skills Series: Post 1: The What, Why, and How of Durable Skills

^[13] You are able to register for IPECT events once we register you in IPECT. Your program requests your registration.