Interprofessional Strategies (FS-03)

¹Physiopedia, Evergreen, Colorado, United States, ²Educational Consultant-Prosthetic and Orthotics, Tbilisi, Georgia, ³Ziauddin University, Ziauddin College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Occupational Therapy, Karachi, Pakistan, ⁴Educational Consultant, Kyviv, Ukraine, ⁵Mubende Regional Referral Hospital & Uganda Institute of Allied Health & Management Sciences, Physiotherapy, Kampala, Uganda

Learning objective 1: Recognize the distinctiveness and commonalities contained in professional competencies, standards of practice, standards of education, and entry level curricula for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and prosthetics and orthotics.

Learning objective 2: Appreciate the reflective experiences of evaluating opportunities for interprofessional education collaboration among international partners in the rehabilitation community.

Learning objective 3: Reflect on your own education program to find opportunities to optimize resources to help strengthen and integrate rehabilitation into health systems.

Description: Rehab 2030 established the need to strengthen and integrate physiotherapy and other rehabilitation professions into health systems around the world. Unfortunately, limited opportunities in entry-level education and continuing professional development across all rehabilitation professions has impacted the workforce capacity, especially in low-resourced areas. Imagine a world where there was an abundance of rehabilitation providers that were equipped with up-to-date, evidence-informed, and competency-based education. Even more so, visualize a place where rehabilitation providers learned and worked alongside each other in the classroom and in clinical practice, sharing knowledge and resources, drawing upon the distinctive skills connected with their unique professions in person-centered care. The benefits of interprofessional collaboration for the physiotherapy profession includes improving the ability to educate more providers with limited human resources, increasing the awareness of physiotherapy within other rehabilitation professions and also across the wider health system. A key step in making this vision a reality is to understand the education, competency, and practice expectations for each profession and to draw upon commonalities and appreciate differences.
An international and interprofessional rehabilitation team developed a framework to review, compare, and contrast education strategies and expectations across rehabilitation professions. The process was informed by survey and interview data and a review of over 200 documents representing different rehabilitation professions around the world, including standards of practice, standards of education, professional competencies, curricular plans, and course syllabi. The relevancy of the developed framework for interprofessional workforce development was tested by mapping academic curricular plans to understand similarities and differences within and between professions and global regions, and to identify opportunities for collaboration. The framework was then implemented at the country level in Pakistan, Ukraine, Burma, and Uganda. Perspectives on the process from different rehabilitation professions and ministries of health in these countries provided additional insights for strengthening the rehabilitation workforces with interprofessional education strategies.
Implications/conclusions:

1. Collaborative approaches and curricula mapping across rehabilitation professions around the world helps to identify best practices and gaps that can be the basis for improving curricula and refining resource efficiencies in rehabilitation education around the world.
2. An international and interprofessional collaborative approach to analyzing existing education resources and strategies can provide a solid foundation for improving curricula, achieving resource efficiencies and for creating relevant and informed workforce development strategies that meet local expectations for standards of practice and competencies in rehabilitation provision.

Keywords: Interprofessional, Workforce, Education

References: 

• Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education. 2018 US Occupational Therapy Education Standards (Effective July 1, 2020).https://www.nbcot.org/-/media/NBCOT/PDFs/OTED-ACOTE-Standards.ashx?la=en&hash=564B55B02AF023311AC388AFB121AFD8F12D1952. Published 2018. Accessed January 8, 2022

• Canadian Council of Physiotherapy Programs. National Physiotherapy Entry-to-Practice Curriculum Guidelines. https://www.peac-aepc.ca/pdfs/Resources/Competency%20Profiles/CCPUP%20Curriculum%20Guidelines%202019.pdf. Published 2019. Accessed January 8, 2022.

• Cieza A, Causey K, Kamenov K, Hanson SW, Chatterji S, Vos T. Global estimates of the need for rehabilitation based on the Global Burden of Disease study 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet. 2020 Dec19;396(10267):2006-17.

• International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Revised IALP Education Guidelines. https://ialpasoc.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Revised-IALP-Guidelines-for-Initial-Education-of-SLT.pdf. Published 2007. Accessed January 8, 2022.

• International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics. International Education Standards for Prosthetic/Orthotic Occupations.https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.ispoint.org/resource/resmgr/3_learn/ispo_standards_nov2018_sprea.pdf. Published 2018. Accessed on January 8, 2022.

• Mills JA, Cieza A, Short SD, Middleton JW. Development and Validation of the WHO Rehabilitation Competency Framework: A Mixed Methods Study. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. 2021 Jun 1;102(6):1113-23.

• The Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs. Standards and Guidelines for the Accreditation of Educational Programs in Orthotics and Prosthetics. Published 2019. Accessed January 8, 2022.

• World Federation of Occupational Therapists. Minimum Standards for the Education of Occupational Therapists.https://wfot.org/resources/new-minimum-standards-for-the-education-of-occupational-therapists-2016-e-copy. Published 2016. Accessed January 8, 2022.

• World Physiotherapy. Physiotherapist education framework.https://world.physio/sites/default/files/2021-07/Physiotherapist-education-framework-FINAL.pdf. Published 2021. Accessed January, 8 2022.

• World Physiotherapy. Standards of Physical Therapy Practice Guideline. https://world.physio/sites/default/files/2020-07/G-2011-Standards-practice.pdf. Published 2011. Accessed January 8, 2022.

Funding acknowledgements: This presentation is made possible by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the ReLAB-HS project.