Connecting in SITE events

Welcome 🎉

This post provides general information for those of you who will be participating in a SITE^[1] event–or your learners will be participating in a SITE. Although a “first time" will always be a “first time”--which can bring some nervousness– in this post provides information to successfully navigate SITE events.^[2]

“Why do we do SITEs?” 🤔

Generally learners participate in SITEs as part of their IPE academic requirements–their programs want them to participate. Participating in interprofessional education is an accreditation requirement for many programs. Most importantly though, teamwork skills are critical for quality patient care. “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.”^[3] Developing and practicing teamwork skills with future colleagues is one way to prepare for practice. 

In SITE events (Skills for Interprofessional Team Effectiveness), participants have the opportunity to practice with future professional colleagues in a team setting. Participants…

• 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 more generally)
• Conscientiously represent themselves as individuals, their programs, and their future professions.

When you participate in a SITE, you have a chance to put your best foot forward, make a great first impression with future professional colleagues, and practice entry-to-practice professional skills and attitudes so you will be an effective team member on high functioning healthcare teams.

SITE logistics

Each SITE is either a 4-hour commitment over 2 weeks or a 6-hour commitment over 3 weeks. Resources, submissions, and team tasks are scoped at 2 hours per week. SITEs can be taken in any order. There are no large-group synchronous sessions in SITE events. All synchronous times are team decisions.

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 ccd 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 5:00.^[4] You manage the asynchronous and synchronous tasks to fit your schedule.

Events have both individual and team activities. Contact information for your teammates is available in the event card at 09:00 on Monday morning of Week 1. You will work in a team with one, two, or three other learners in SITE events.^[5]

Your team decides when and how you will work together synchronously–in real time–during the week to complete team tasks. Although none of the team activities require being in person, meeting in person is an option if all team members are geographically able to do so and would like to. If meeting virtually, please choose a meeting platform that has video capability.^[6] We encourage you to connect early in the week to negotiate the day, time, and place for your meeting(s).

How SITEs run

“Smoothly” is the short answer. 😉

Thousands of learners like you have successfully completed SITE events! 🥳 (And we are 98 to 99% confident you will too. ⭐)

SITEs are learner-managed through the InterProfessional Education Competency Tracker (IPECT).^[7] You and your teammates work through the event on your own. This gives you an opportunity to practice durable skills^[8] such as leadership and time management.

 IPECT acts as your virtual event facilitator. All SITEs were developed by interprofessional teams of faculty, instructors, staff, and learner colleagues–interprofessional development teams building events for interprofessional teams. 😊

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 your interprofessional learning experiences, provides resources, sends out announcements, and offers quizzes and challenges.

If you want to become familiar with how an event 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, use your NSID (or your registered email if you are a non-USask participant) and follow the prompts.^[9] 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.

Throughout the event our team watches behind the scenes. We send “nudges” during the week if we see that you haven’t started–usually sometime on Wednesday. We also send friendly reminders to complete the event on the Monday following the event if we see you have not yet completed the event. We call this “coaching for successful completion.” Fun fact: The successful completion rate of SITEs over the past five years hovers between 98 and 99%! 🎉

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

^[1] SITE is the acronym for “Skills for Interprofessional Team Effectiveness”. You can read more about SITEs in our first blog on this: The What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How of SITEs.

^[2] For additional information on what to expect from an IPECT-facilitated event–like SITEs, you can also watch this 3 minute video.

^[3] Why Teamwork Matters: Part 1: Collaboratively Building High-Quality Healthcare, Why Teamwork Matters Part 2: Preparing to be an Effective Team Member

^[4] We encourage you to complete the event during this time but, if for some reason this is not possible, you can still access the event card in Past events to complete.

^[5] Teams are “small” to facilitate deeper conversation and contribution, increase accountability, and to make it easier to coordinate meeting times. 😉

^[6] Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet are examples of platforms with this capability.

^[7] 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

^[8] For more on durable skills, please see Durable Skills Series: Post 1: The What, Why, and How of Durable Skills

^[9] You are able to register for IPECT events once we register you in IPECT. Your program requests your registration.