Work package 4: Use of multimedia and focus on interdisciplinary collaboration in mother and child care

Work package team 4: Prof. dr. Martin Valcke (PhD promotor), Prof. Dr. Koen Norga (PhD promotor), dr. Mieke Embo (PhD co-promotor);  Marieke Robbrecht (Researcher and PhD student), Prof. Dr. Koenraad Smets (Doctoral Advisory Comittee), Prof. dr. Myriam Van Winckel (PhD hoofdpromotor), Prof. Dr. Steven Weyers (Promotor project, Doctoral Advisory Comittee)

Joint PhD: UGent and UAntwerpen

For both paediatrics and gynaecology, a new competency framework will be established. This will be developed through the combination of current existing frameworks. After a thorough evaluation in our research group, the framework will be validated by a Delphi study. For the other health workers, a Delphi study will be performed by work package 6. The competency framework will be used in the new ePortfolio, and will be a guide for the next two subtasks.

During workplace learning in healthcare settings, it is not always a matter of course that direct observation is possible. Nevertheless, direct observation provides trainers and trainees with a lot of advantages regarding feedback and assessment. Therefore we will develop a tool that is suitable in terms of education and legal practice.

First, a review on existing methods for using video/audio for training in healthcare practice within the hospital, with analysis of context/conditions will be performed. Also, focusgroups are held to find current state in the post-graduate medicine education in Flanders.

Second, we will develop a method that is applicable in and will be tested in the context of a Flemish training hospital. This will ensure feasibility. Also, in this way we can investigate what competencies from the framework, that was established in subtask 1, are suitable for training using multimedia.

Third, we will also evaluate the benefits and learning effect of this method, investigating whether it actually has a positive impact on workplace learning and if it is not, how we can improve the tool to make it more suitable for education.

Effective interdisciplinary collaboration is beneficial for patient safety and healthcare in general. However, it is not clear whether post-graduate students are being trained in a proper way to make this collaboration happen. Therefore we will design a tool that stimulates, supports and improves interdisciplinary collaboration during workplace learning. By implementing this tool in the ePortfolio, we want to support scaffolding learning.

First, we will report on the collaboration competences to be expected of different actors in mother- and childcare. This will be done on the one hand by de Delphi study in subtask 1, on the other hand by performing a thorough literature study. In focus groups, we will evaluate the current state of this kind of training during workplace learning in Flanders.

With this information kept in mind, we will develop a tool to support and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration. Equal to subtask 2, this tool will be tested in the context of a Flemish training hospital.

Finally, we will evaluate the effect of using the tool on the quality of interdisciplinary collaboration, investigating whether it actually improves this collaboration and how it might be adjusted for better training.