Along with learning the skills of their profession, learners at University of Minnesota’s health professional programs are learning how to work with one another. In the Transitional Care Unit (TCU) at nearby Walker Methodist Hospital, a care team that includes a geriatrician, a nurse, and a pharmacist teaches students in each discipline what true interprofessional team practice is all about.

“Team practice is the wave of the future,” says Marilyn Speedie, PhD, Dean of the College of Pharmacy at University of Minnesota. “It is one of the things that is going to help us really improve care. But it’s not easy to do. We are used to delivering parallel care, but to work together as a functioning team, we don’t have very many examples of that.” This program is designed to change that.

Speedie says that studies of care on the TCU indicate the team approach is improving care, reducing patients’ length of stay, and saving money. “The average length of stay for patients with team care is 20.4 days versus 27.0 days for other patients,” she says. “That’s a difference in cost of about $12,000 versus $14,300.”

A training program of this nature requires an investment, both from the academic health center and the hospital. “You have to make a conscious effort to move the quality of practice ahead,” says Speedie.

02/01/2007