Collaborative Care Transitions Symposium: Insights from Participants

Abstract

Background/purpose: There are promising signs that interprofessional collaborative practice is associated with quality care transitions and improved access to patient-centred healthcare. A one-day symposium was held to increase awareness and capacity to deliver quality collaborative care transitions to interprofessional health disciplines and service users.

Method: A mixed methods study was used that included a pre-post survey design and interviews to examine the impact of the symposium on knowledge, attitudes and practice change towards care transitions and collaborative practice with symposium participants.

Discussion: Our survey results revealed a statistically significant increase in only a few of the scores towards care transitions and collaborative practice among post-survey respondents. Three key themes emerged from the qualitative analysis, including: (1) engaging the patient at the heart of interprofessional collaboration and co-design of care transitions; (2) having time to reach out, share and learn from each other; and (3) reflecting, reinforcing and revising practice.

Conclusion: Further efforts that engage inter-organizational learning by exchanging knowledge and evaluating these forums are warranted.