CE to Address Team Performance

Interprofessional education is defined as an experience that occurs when "students from two or more professions learn from, with and about each other"*. Within the context of the healthcare environment, this approach consists of education that addresses competencies within the domains of values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, interprofessional communication, and teams and teamwork. 

As the number of continuing education activities designed and conducted for multiple types of professionals within the UAB healthcare enterprise has continued to increase over the last decade and attendance at activities has become increasingly varied in terms of healthcare professionals, we engaged in a review process to identify opportunities for streamlining certification to provide additional support for the design elements, support processes, and assessment of team-based education to further the mission and goals of the university and health care system.

How to Determine if your activity qualifies for interprofessional Credit

Your activity may have a steady audience drawn from multiple healthcare professional fields and address content relevant to each, but still may not qualify as interprofessional. Here are some questions for your planning team to consider (and please contact us at cme@uab.edu with any questions):

1. Does your intended audience include at least two healthcare professions (e.g. physicians, nurses, advanced practitioners?
2. Does at least one practice or knowledge gap for the activity address teamwork, roles and responsibilities, communication, collaboration, or ethical practice?
   1. Does a minimum of 25% of sessions focus on issues of teamwork, roles and responsibilities, communication, collaboration, or ethical practice?
3. Do the planners, faculty, and/or reviewers include members of at least two professions from the intended audience?
   1. OR Does the planning process demonstrate through some other means (needs assessment, e.g.) that the perspectives of each profession have been included in the planning process?
4. Does at least one activity outcome explicitly address change in skill/strategy/performance of team or patient outcomes?

 Your activity may not currently meet all of these criteria, but if you want to provide credit for more than a single profession and would like it designated as interprofessional, we can work with you to restructure it going forward. Some common tweaks that are needed:

• Revise the needs assessment process to ensure that the perspectives of each profession have been included in the planning process
• Adjust learning objectives to explicitly include one of: teamwork, roles and responsibilities, communication, collaboration, or ethical practice
• Add a question that specifically addresses team function to your evaluation
• Add support strategy(ies) to facilitate sustained change, e.g.
  • Key takeaways/summary information
  • Checklists
  • Screening or assessment tools
  • Algorithms
  • EMR reminders Resources guides