Building the capacity of interprofessional providers to work in primary care teams: Insights from six professions

Context: Interprofessional primary care teams are crucial for providing comprehensive care to patients with complex health needs. For many professions, interprofessional primary care is a new practice setting and understanding the unique collaborative processes within primary care remains limited. Few training resources are available to support primary care teams.

Objective: Enhance the capacity of interprofessional primary care providers to work collaboratively through online education modules.

Study Design and Analysis: An online consensus building exercise was held to co-develop learning objectives with four representatives from six professions including Audiology, Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Social Work, and Speech-Language Pathology. Key competencies from the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative, including team functioning, collaborative leadership, communication, role clarification, collaborative relationship building, and conflict resolution, guided the development of the modules and engagement process. The interprofessional collaborative relationship-building model informed interprofessional case studies.

Setting: On-line primary care modules.

Population Studied: Pre-and post-licensure interprofessional primary care providers.

Intervention: New curricula for team-based primary care in the form of online modules focusing on the foundations of primary care, including models of team-based care, access, equity, continuity, comprehensiveness.

Outcome Measures: The collaborative process led to the development of educational modules addressing core aspects of primary care and enhancing interprofessional collaboration.

Results: Results demonstrated successful collaboration with comprehensive primary care modules that address the unique needs of interprofessional teams.The modules provided a foundation for primary care teams to understand their roles, communicate effectively, and resolve conflicts. Recommendations include building capacity within and across professions for primary care teamwork, articulating collaboration competencies within the primary care context, engaging in collaborative educational activities, establishing primary care competencies, and fostering interprofessional collaboration in practice and education.

Conclusions: This work highlights the importance of interprofessional collaboration in primary care and underscores the need for ongoing education and support to ensure effective teamwork.