INPRO – Successful Interprofessional Learning
3 x INPRO Learning: At the beginning of December, students and teachers learned from and with each other interprofessionally in parallel courses
From 1 to 4 December, the interprofessional teaching and learning interventions within the framework of the INPRO project took place in close collaboration with our partner countries Belgium, Finland, and the Netherlands.
The objective was to develop and test teaching formats on the basis of the pilot project PROMISE, which was already developed last year and now revised as part of this year’s project.
The new teaching formats were designed to be interprofessional, international and online but practice-oriented at the same time – specifically thanks to the involvement of real persons with real health concerns as well as the close cooperation with the rehabilitation centre Moorheilbad Harbach. In all three of these formats, the application areas of ICF as a common language and structure for interprofessional collaboration were tested through different approaches.
We would like to thank everyone involved for their valuable work and for the interesting, informative and beautiful experiences we made. In particular, we thank all students for their active participation in the further development of interprofessional teaching. Over the next few year, we will turn the tested teaching formats into an overall concept that will, in time, become an integral part of the training for the health and social professions at the St. Pölten UAS.
Copyright: FH St. Pölten / U. Hemetek
INPRO International
50 students and 14 lecturers from five professions and the four partner countries Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, and Austria took part in this online teaching format. Members of the five professions involved – occupational therapy, dietetics, healthcare and nursing, physiotherapy, and social work – worked on prepared case examples in mixed groups across professional borders.
With the assistance of ICF Assessment Sheets, the students adopted an interprofessional perspective to grasp and process the “cases” with all their needs and circumstances. Subsequently, the results were presented and discussed.
Copyright: FH St. Pölten / A. Kidritsch
INPRO Practice with School Pupils
In cooperation with the lower secondary school NöMS Drosendorf-Zissersdorf within the framework of the St. Pölten UAS’ Science Fair project, nine UAS students, three lecturers of Physiotherapy and Dietetics, and six pupils of the NöMS Drosendorf worked on the pupils’ health concerns together.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event could not be held at the St. Pölten UAS as planned but had to be switched to an online format instead.
The UAS students used this opportunity to work interprofessionally using the Miro tool and with real persons based on the ICF model. In order to be able to fully concentrate on this procedure and on the children’s needs, Claudia Zimmel as a representative of the partner Moorheilbad Harbach and the children’s teacher Wilfried-Donatus Fux provided the UAS students with training on how to treat children and talk to them in an age-appropriate manner, which formed the basis for a profound reflection on the ICF model.
Copyright: Wilfried-Donatus Fux
INPRO Practice: Rehabilitation at the Moorheilbad Harbach and Online on the Topic of Family Council
In this workshop, 36 students of the St. Pölten UAS degree programme Physiotherapy worked together with the interprofessional team at Moorheilbad Harbach consisting of experts for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, and psychology as well as their head of therapy. Following input on the framework conditions (financing models, team meeting, ICF application), the students formed small groups and experienced the demonstration by an actor of a typical client in order to grasp their individual health concerns (identification phase).
On the next day, Michael Delorette from the Department of Social Sciences, Christian Freisleben-Teutscher from the service unit SKILL, and Claudia Zimmel as a representative of the partner Moorheilbad Harbach accompanied the students in further considerations with regard to a person-centred approach to the physiotherapeutic process.
Based on the concept of family council and role play, the students summarised their insights gained on the two workshop days in the form of simulated interprofessional discussions and talks with clients. These were recorded and are now available for the next INPRO project steps. They have also been complemented by video recordings of a team meeting by the professionals from Harbach, expertly captured by a student project group of the degree programme Media Technology including English subtitles.
Copyright: FH St. Pölten / A. Kidritsch
PROMISE
In parallel with the INPRO courses, the already established interprofessional course PROMISE was held on site at the St. Pölten UAS once again this year. As before, the format was coordinated by Julia Glösmann and involved the study programmes Physiotherapy, Healthcare and Nursing, Dietetics, and Social Work.
In this setting, which was inspired by the Belgian IPSIG format, the students work on prepared case examples in small interprofessional groups. The regional and international settings of INPRO will be repeated on a larger scale in 2022. The goal is the long-term implementation of interprofessional learning in the study programmes of the Department of Health Sciences in cooperation with the Department of Social Sciences and external partners.
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