Twelve tips for structuring student placements to achieve interprofessional learning outcomes

Abstract

Background: Increasingly, universities are being asked to provide evidence of interprofessional learning within their health and human services programs. Given the authentic nature of the placement setting, this component of curricula is well suited to provide students with these interprofessional learning experiences. Aims: To describe twelve tips for structuring student placements to achieve interprofessional learning outcomes. Methods: Development of these 12 tips was based on knowledge and experience drawn from the literature, focus groups and workshop with experts within the field, together with the authors’ own experiences over many years of teaching in multidisciplinary and interprofessional contexts. Results and conclusions: The tips provide direction and clarity for universities and placement sites to facilitate authentic learning in practice based settings. In particular, they describe the ways in which placements can be structured to maximise opportunities for students to achieve specific interprofessional competencies. They are underpinned by the principle that interprofessional learning should be a core component of all healthcare placements and that student learning occurs through participation in routine work activity in addition to structured learning activities.