The Tairāwhiti Interprofessional Education (IPE) programme began in 2012 and brings senior pre-registration students from different health disciplines together to learn with, from and about each other while gaining clinical experience in rural New Zealand. The programme is based in Tairāwhiti (Gisborne) with a satellite programme in Wairoa. Tairāwhiti is the remote eastern-most region of the North Island of New Zealand
The IPE programme is run by the University of Otago in conjunction with a range of tertiary institutions, and the Tairāwhiti and Hawkes Bay District Health Boards.
Final year students live together in shared accommodation in five week rotations at either Gisborne or Wairoa hospitals. They are from eleven health professional degree programmes, from a number of tertiary education institutions:
- University of Otago – dental, medical, oral health, physiotherapy, pharmacy
- Eastern Institute of Technology – nursing
- Otago Polytechnic – occupational therapy
- Auckland University of Technology – paramedicine
- University of Auckland – dietetic
- Massey University – speech language therapy
Objectives
Key learning objectives incorporate principles of rural health care, Hauora Māori, long term condition management and interprofessional health care. Students also meet discipline specific clinical learning objectives
Interprofessional health care
Achieving greater understanding between health disciplines about "patient centred collaborative practice, effective teamwork, interprofessional respect and how to effectively resolve disagreement."
“Staying with other health professionals meant we gained a great understanding of their roles and allowed us to see each other as real people who are approachable.”
Hauora Māori
To better meet Māori Health needs by working with Māori in culturally safe and respectful ways, enhancing understanding within Māori models of health care.
“I don’t think I could have come into a warmer, friendlier, more welcoming community. I’ve never ever been able to apply my concepts of Hauora Māori and things like that that we get taught in our courses because it just goes out the window so that’s been fantastic.”
Rural (Tai-whenua)
Increasing rural training opportunities, enhancing workforce opportunities with students able to return to rural areas, better equipping senior health students for comprehensive generalist practice.
“Living with IPE students and spending time with them outside of work hours, trips up the coast – immersing us in the culture, experiencing first hand what rural areas are like, talking with people who live there about problems.”
Long term conditions management
Demonstrating principles of team based care, self-management and expert patients – as more people than ever before live longer and live with more long-term conditions, collaborative practice is increasingly needed.
“I now have a better understanding of how we can collectively work together to achieve better outcomes for our patients.”
Core intended learning outcomes
- Interprofessional competency domains
- Interprofessional communication
- Role clarification and understanding
- Reflective practice – incorporating interprofessional principles, values, ethics
- Teamwork and Team Functioning (including conflict negotiation and resolution)
- Collaborative leadership (and followership)
- Co-ordination and decision making
At the end of the programme, and within a clinical, rural, hauora Māori context, you will be able to demonstrate that you have developed advanced skills in and understanding about:
- Interprofessional Communication
- The Treaty of Waitangi, especially as it influences health and social care in Tairāwhiti and Wairoa
- Hauora Maori, especially as it influences health and social care in Tairāwhiti and Wairoa
- Rural health care, especially as it influences health and social care in Tairāwhiti and Wairoa
- Patient- / Client-/ family-whanau-centred approaches to care
- Health professional role clarification and understanding – roles and responsibilities
- Team work and team functioning, including negotiating disagreement
- Collaborative leadership and followership
- Reflection about practice, in relation to long term/complex conditions management and socially accountable practice
- Co-ordination and decision-making in patient/client care
Accommodation and transport
It is expected that all the Tairāwhiti IPE students live in the provided accommodation during the programme to enable students to further opportunities to "learn with, from and about each other", get to know other students better and work closely together on projects.
The Tairāwhiti programme will provide and pay for one return trip for each student from their main clinical location (airfare or reimburse mileage of a private vehicle); they will also provide necessary transport costs for programme activities whilst on the programme.
Students will be provided with 5 weeks, mixed-flatting/dormitory-style accommodation on the Tairāwhiti District Health Board compound whilst in Gisborne or at the Francis Kimbell Hostel at Wairoa Hospital.
For students staying longer than 5 weeks accommodation will be organised but at student cost.
