Abstract
Background: Stroke is a chronic disease affecting over 100,000 Canadians/year. As the Canadian population ages, more people are living longer with stroke and other chronic conditions (comorbidities). As a chronic disease, stroke care requires interprofessional, integrated approaches to care that extends across health and social sectors. There are marked inequities in stroke incidence, quality of care, access, complications and health outcomes based on factors such as race and social determinants of health. As new models of integrated stroke care are implemented, health professionals require different education and a broader understanding of the healthcare system to work collaboratively across health sectors. The skills needed to support stroke patients transitioning across health sectors require competency in interprofessional practice, stroke care, quality, safety, and integrated care. Current trends in educating future and current health professions include: 1) Increasing IPE to better prepare professionals for collaborative practice and cross-sector integrated care; 2) Education that is more patient-centred, community, and chronic disease oriented; 3) Competency- based education to be able to address health inequities and to be able to advocate for and partner with patients, families and communities; 4) Health professions education informed by the care delivery system in which its graduates will work; 5) Engaging community members e.g. health professionals, patients and families with lived experience demonstrates positive learning outcomes and student experiences and is critical in identifying learning priorities and designing, implementing and evaluating educational interventions.
Approach: This project employed a community-engaged co-designed approach to develop, implement and evaluate an experiential learning activity for health professions students that increases their knowledge and skills in providing equitable interprofessional integrated stroke care for older adults from vulnerable populations. The project addresses the intersection of EDI with interprofessional practice enabling students to apply and practice relevant skills to promote access to equitable and culturally appropriate stroke care. We co-designed the educational materials, case scenarios, vignettes, student and facilitator guides with patients and caregivers with lived experience with stroke, community stroke team members, a graduate nursing student, and faculty with interprofessional and integrated care, reflective practice and experiential learning expertise.
Results: The learning materials were integrated in two undergraduate nursing courses in the winter 2025. One course was in-person and one online. Student experiences and reflections will be shared. It is anticipated that this project will enhance learners' knowledge, promote active learning, problem-solving, critical thinking and reasoning competencies. Learning activities will emphasize development of additional health professions competencies for interprofessional practice, EDI, person-centred care, advocacy, and critical and reflective thinking.
Implications: This project offers important learnings and insights in co-designing experiential health professions education materials that reflect the current realities of integrated stroke care across the care continuum. In addition, it can be used with both health professions students and existing healthcare professionals delivering integrated stroke care.
Next steps: We plan to share this work with other health and social care professionals across our university programs and with integrated stroke care programs. Revise materials based on this year’s implementation for continued integration in health professions education curricula.