Maximising the impact of continuing professional education on practice Liz Clark, Jan Draper and Shelagh Sparrow Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University and the OU–RCN Strategic Alliance
Workshop objectives To provide a brief overview of the development of the Impact on Practice (ImP) framework To demonstrate the online version of the framework To interrogate the framework and discuss its potential use by healthcare educators (and other stakeholders) when designing, delivering and reviewing post-registration programmes
Workshop outline Introductions Overview of the ImP project Group work to interrogate the paper-based and online versions of the framework, prior to its early release and its evaluation phase Feedback
Original aim of the ImP project: The project was carried out between 2006 and 2008 and funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), as part of its Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF3) To develop a tool to evaluate the impact of continuing professional education (CPE) on healthcare practice
Context Investment in continuing professional education (CPE) Rhetoric of the benefits of CPE/lifelong learning Evidence-based and outcomes-driven culture in healthcare services and needs-led education Lack of evidence of the added-value of CPE Vulnerability to cut-backs in funding (e.g. 2006/07) Masses of anecdotal evidence of the benefits of post registration learning on nursing practice Political drivers
Context (cont.) Small-scale and short-term studies in one locality Over-reliance on learner satisfaction Retrospective methods (errors of recall and bias) Benefits to service users are assumed, but rarely assessed directly Limitations of current evidence
In-depth conversations with key stakeholders about the proposed project: employers patients students
According to stakeholders, what is needed is an approach that is… Easy to understand and use Not research Not programme-specific Dynamic Cost-effective
Our approach Organisational culture Role of the manager Link between education provider and employer Literature review (health and social care and education literature); emerging themes: Contributions from an UK-wide Expert Advisory Group Two interactive conference presentations (one national and one international) and a symposium
Our approach (cont.) commissioners of education managers health and social care educators service users/representatives from patient organisations learners Conversations with key stakeholders to develop/refine the framework:
The ImP Framework The four core domains of the ImP framework are: education provider learner manager organisation The patient/service user voice is reflected across all four domains
The ImP framework
Our journey so far… Seizing the moment Upstream thinking Complexity vs ease of understanding/use Interrogation of framework by expert panel Evaluation of this untested theoretical framework in a range of healthcare settings Next steps…
Any questions? Contact details: Liz Clark: Jan Draper:
Group work