Patient, Caregiver and Clinician Perspectives on Co-Designing "Navigating The Integrated Stroke Care Journey" An Open Education Resource

Background: Building workforce capacity and capability for integrated care requires changes in health professions education and pedagogical approaches. Engagement of community health professionals, patients and family caregivers with lived experience in co-designing health professions education demonstrates positive learning outcomes and student experiences and is critical in identifying learning priorities and designing, implementing and evaluating educational interventions. This project takes a step towards educating future and current health care professionals about providing equitable, integrated, interprofessional care for people with stroke who are transitioning from the hospital and reintegrating into the community.

 

Approach: Guided by best practices and competencies for interprofessional, integrated stroke care, adult and experiential learning. We engaged an interprofessional team including a stroke survivor, family caregivers, acute care and community-based stroke clinicians, regional stroke director, an Indigenous community member along with academics with interprofessional and experiential learning expertise.

 

Together we engaged in a co-design process which included co-development of the learning objectives, development of case studies reflecting the reality of accessing stroke care for vulnerable and Indigenous populations. Interviews with patient and family caregivers, were used to create patient and caregiver videos in which they share their perspectives in transitioning from acute care to community rehabilitation and further community reintegration.

 

Results: This experiential learning activity contains an interactive journey map that depicts the experiences of people living with stroke, caregivers, and healthcare staff through three phases of the healthcare continuum:

1) acute inpatient hospital care;

2) community rehabilitation; and

3)transition and community reintegration

Video narratives of patients and caregivers illustrate their experiences across each phase of care, helping learners understand and reflect on the nuanced, complex, and diverse realities within the current healthcare system. The shared narratives highlight the value of an equitable, integrated, interprofessional approach to community-based stroke care. Valuable insights gained through focus groups with interprofessional stroke team members enhanced the authenticity of the content and case study development throughout each phase of the stroke journey. Feedback on the process of co-developing this resource, perceptions of the final resource and potential use of the resource in various contexts will be shared.

 

Implications: This educational resource can be used with a wide range of learners within both academic and practice contexts. Codesigning educational resources should be informed by and closely interconnected with the care delivery system in which its graduates will work and those with lived experiences. Using relational practices and academic-practice partnerships such as this can help address educational gaps that are authentic representations of the real world.