Five years on: Influences on early career health professionals from a rural interprofessional pre-registration immersion program.

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain former students' perceptions of and influences from a final-year pre-registration, rurally located, clinically based, 5 week interprofessional program on their subsequent work and career in the health professions. DESIGN: Online survey delivered 5 years post-program (4 years post-graduation). SETTING: The Tairawhiti interprofessional education program was first undertaken in 2012/2013 by students from six health professional degree programs (dentistry, dietetics, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and physiotherapy) in the Tairawhiti region, New Zealand. PARTICIPANTS: Health professionals who attended the Tairawhiti interprofessional education program in 2012/2013 as students were invited to participate; 70 of 86 (81%) responded in 2017/2018. RESULTS: Five years on, most respondents (91%;64/70) were working as health professionals, with a fifth (23%;15/64) working overseas. Of those currently practising in New Zealand, 51% (24/47) were working in hospital practice and 49% (23/47) in the community, with 56% (27/48) working in metropolitan areas and 44% (21/48) in regional/rural locations. Of the 51 respondents who provided free-text comments about perceived influences of program participation, the majority described positive influences on their clinical practice as health professionals or their subsequent career choices. Five themes emerged from the free-text data: 'made me a better clinician'; 'made me consider rural/regional work'; 'collaborating for care'; 'choosing an area of practice to work in,' and 'little or no impact.' CONCLUSION: This work reports positive influences on subsequent careers among respondents who had previously participated as final-year students in a rurally located IPE program, particularly with respect to interprofessional working, rural health, and contextual and cultural influences.

Long-term condition management: health professionals' perspectives.

INTRODUCTION: Long-term conditions (LTCs) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in New Zealand. The burden upon patients and health care services to manage these conditions has prompted calls for primary care to lead the way in early diagnosis and coordination of LTC care. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perspectives of health professionals in a geographically-isolated region of New Zealand regarding current levels of LTC management to provide direction for future service development. METHODS: Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted in 2009 with 10 purposively sampled health professionals in the primary care field, including four general practitioners, four nurses and two management team personnel, all practising in a regional District Health Board. The resultant data were analysed using a general inductive thematic approach. FINDINGS: Three main themes were identified by the health professionals as being key issues pertaining to the management of LTCs. These are discussed as issues pertaining to management, information and communication and leadership. CONCLUSION: The results showed that LTC management is rated as highly important by health care professionals who are aware of the need to change current delivery methods to improve client outcomes. All those interviewed highlighted issues related to funding as being a significant barrier to implementing innovations in LTC management, including nurse-led services. Plans to develop integrated family health centres, information technology systems and increased collaboration between clinicians were hailed as potential solutions to improving LTC management.