The development and evaluation of an interdisciplinary health training program: a pharmacy perspective.

Abstract

This program integrates training with the clinical interdisciplinary aspects of health care by directly involving pharmacy and other health professional students in an on-going team model of health care delivery. The training program model allows pharmacy students to learn the conceptual basis of team care and to experience directly how this concept is applied in an ambulatory health care setting. Learning strategies include specialty and team delivery of health care, participation in weekly interdisciplinary team training seminars, involvement in problem-solving and other skill building activities, and development of an interdisciplinary team project. Program evaluation results have indicated that students perceive that the interdisciplinary training increased their knowledge and positive attitudes towards interdisciplinary teams. The training also increased their sensitivity to patients, and enhanced the understanding of the problems of delivering health care to an urban community. The results have also shown that through this structured interdisciplinary experience, students reported having a better understanding of the roles of other health professionals and a greater awareness of how these different roles are integrated into a health care team.