Interprofessional teaching and learning in the health care professions: A qualitative evaluation of the Robert Bosch Foundation's grant program "Operation Team"

AIM Interprofessional teaching and learning is gaining significance in the health professions. At the same time, the development and implementation of such educational courses is demanding. Focusing on factors critical to success, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the experience gathered by eight grant projects in which interprofessional courses were designed. Emphasis is placed on the level of cooperation between the participating educational institutions, course content, the operative implementation of the course units and their permanent integration into curricula. METHOD Data was collected in semi-structured, guideline-based interviews with project leaders and team members (n=43). University and vocational students who had attended the evaluated courses were also included in the survey (n=7) as a means to triangulate data. Analysis was carried out based on qualitative content analysis. RESULTS A participatory, dialogue-centered model of cooperation appears to be most suited for developing and implementing courses. Belonging to the factors critical to success are the time when courses are offered, the conditions for attendance, the different teaching and learning cultures of the professions involved, preparation and deployment of instructors, and the role played by project coordination. Permanently integrating interprofessional units into medical curricula revealed itself to be difficult. CONCLUSION While the development and realization of interprofessional courses can be achieved easily enough in projects, curricular integration of the new course units is challenging. In respect to the latter, not only a large amount of staffing resources and time are required, but also the creation of the necessary system-level structures, not just within the educational institutions (organizational development) but also in the frameworks governing the professions.