Abstract
Introduction: Barriers to providing continuous and preventable health care to our growing ageing population and people experiencing chronic disease includes the training our current and future health workforce. The current curricula do not promote experience and skills in community and primary care settings. Training still emphasises the diagnosis and treatment of acute diseases; fragmented, outdated, siloed and static curricula. Students learn primary care principles in many training programs but are subsequently placed in clinical environments where it is difficult to implement and practice them. There is also limited access to experts, which prevents the expansion of existing competencies and curricula.
Aims: This presentation describes an interprofessional program for students who are on a rural placement at the University Centre for Rural Health in Australia. Up to 40 students participate each week. The students are mostly in their final years of study and are from disciplines such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and dentistry. In 2019, for example, 1,229 undergraduate and postgraduate students from 15 universities and 13 health disciplines participated in the program. Since Covid 19 the program has been offered online allowing new disciplines and universities and health and social care providers to participate.
Highlights: The program supports students to learn with and from each other and allows an understanding of the roles of others from the acute and primary health care settings. The program focuses on health, wellness, early intervention, and prevention and connecting people and communities with a range of health and social care services outside the acute-care setting. The program includes information about national and state-wide programs and presentations by local community service providers (e.g., the National Disability Insurance Scheme, My Aged Care, Vision Australia, and Cancer Council NSW) and active involvement of people with lived experiences of care. Students are exposed to new and emerging national guidelines and policies. They work in small interdisciplinary groups to discuss and review these policies and make recommendations on how they will be implemented. This process encourages students to generate new knowledge and novel ideas and solutions to current and emerging issues in health care.
Conclusion: There are limited examples of incorporating integrated care principles in the curricula of our future health and social care workforce. Education and training need to be a priority to achieve sustainable integrated care in the next generation. This example can be applied across disciplines and universities and applied face to face or online.
Implications for applicability/ transferability and limitations: There is an urgent need to incorporate, competencies and training models, and leadership into our current curricula for health and social care professionals. This presentation describes an effective method for implementing these competencies, including active involvement of people with lived experience of care.