Assessment of Common Competencies in Interprofessional Practice: The Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings Case Study

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Assessing Interprofessional Education and Work in the Health Care Professions

Abstract

Purpose: The case study presented is of a large interprofessional collaboration in West Yorkshire in the UK. The Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) programme was conceived to address a perceived need for cross professional assessment of certain common competencies. For example, all healthcare professionals are required to have good communication skills. Assessment of these skills is done best in authentic work-based settings. In the UK the use of 360 degree feedback is now commonly used for the annual review and revalidation of senior clinicians. In this exercise all members of the healthcare team are invited to provide feedback to an individual clinician on different aspects of their professional practice. One purpose of the ALPS programme was to prepare students to be assessed by different healthcare professionals in several common areas.

Method: ALPS was developed as a collaboration between five Higher Education Institutions: the University of Bradford, the University of Huddersfield, the University of Leeds; Leeds Metropolitan University, and York St John University. The partnership included 16 health and social care professions; and a wide range of other associated groups including Yorkshire and the Humber Strategic Health Authority, practice networks and professional bodies. The ALPS full mission was to explore ways, which ensured that students graduate fully equipped to perform confidently and competently at the start of their professional careers.

Results: The common competency areas chosen were: communication skills, team working, ethical practice, and patient safety. Interprofessional groups from the partner institutions were set up and agreed common competency maps were established. Subsequently common assessment tools were developed which were piloted using mobile devices. Consequently students in placements remote from the base University could be assessed in naturalistic work-based settings by different healthcare professionals and by patients.

Significance: Using the conceptual frameworks of the socio-cultural understanding (1) of knowledge development and the development of professional identity (2) the outputs of the ALPS programme were examined. The issues of professional identity and professional tribalism that were addressed satisfactorily by the ALPS programme multiprofessional management groups were more difficult to address at the level of assessment of different healthcare students. The professional and regulatory bodies of the 16 health and social care professional groups were engaged because there was disquiet that a healthcare student from one discipline could be signed off as competent in a core professional skill by a member of a different healthcare discipline. Other issues that became apparent during the programme were the variable degree of readiness of faculty from the different health and social care disciplines to engage with the process of assessing students from other professions and the importance that some individuals place on professional identity. Overall an understanding of the development of professional identity supported the engagement with faculty but the continuing requirements of some of the professional and regulatory bodies has meant that 2 years after the completion of the programme that although the competency maps and tools are still in use by the collaborating institutions they tend to be used uniprofessionally.

Author

• Trudie Elizabeth Roberts, University of Leeds