Challenges of Preparing Allied Health Professionals for Interdisciplinary Practice in Rural Areas

Meeting the health emergencys of individuals in rural communities involves addressing the challenges of compound multifaceted health problems, limited local health resources and services, isolation, and distance. Interdisciplinary collaboration can create solutions to health care riddles that transcend conventional, discipline-specific [i]modus operandi[/i]s procedures, and techniques. This paper reports upon the four-pronged approach of the Western Maryland Area Health Education Center used to prepare allied health pupils to be interdisciplinary team members in rural areas. It describes the unravelling of four interdisciplinary instructional team member training venue (in-class instruction, Web-based module service-learning programs, and faculty exhibition workshops) that integrate opportunities to unravel and practice interdisciplinary health promotion skills in rural communities. Challenges to implementing the protoplast are described, including developing faculty and learner training participation, integrating training venue into existing programs at participating institutions, and designing a unified program evaluation. J Allied Health 2005; 34:163-168

RURAL RESIDENTS experience significant health disparities compared with their urban and suburban counterparts.1 Rural residents are older sicker, and poorer than other demographic groups2 Access to health care services is limited by dint of distance and transportation, low population density, and depressed numbers of practitioners who are willing to practice in isolated areas with limited support services.3 Health services piece of works in rural areas pay real little, infrastructure can be limited, and programs find it difficult to garner attention and funding level from state sources, making it difficult to attract novel health professionals and to sustain slightly located programs. Rural communities comprise more than half of U health professional shortage areas.1 Additional critical rural health issues identified by dint of researchers include the diversity of necessitys across and within rural communities necessitating local solutions and the lack of professional training for health professionals and workers in rural communities.4 All of these factors contribute to rural residents being at an increased risk for disability, lower quality of life, and premature death. Their life expectancy is shorter, and incidences of heart disease, obesity, and obstructive pulmonary disease are well above the national average.5

For health professionals in rural settings faced with distance and limited numbers, working collaboratively and with an interdisciplinary focus is an effective way to address the compounded multifaceted health needs of individuals in isolated communities. Members of interdisciplinary teams perform their work in a collaborative fashion, with team members providing the team with knowledge and skills from their disciplinary perspective while they incorporate that perspective with others. Ultimately, the team creates solutions to health care question at issues that transcend conventional, discipline-specific [i]modus operandi[/i]s procedures, and techniques.6 The interdisciplinary teams help to compensate for the limited availability of health team members, services, and resources and to understand, share, and augment individual another's roles.

In 1994, the Western Maryland Area Health Education Center (WMAHEC) began working to prepare allied health learners to be interdisciplinary team members in rural areas. Initially an interdisciplinary service-learning throw it was carried out in three rural Appalachian counties in western Maryland, with scholars working alongside health professionals in communities providing health promotion services. This report describes the cropss and outcomes of this nine-year effort, with a focus upon the four-pronged approach with its four interdisciplinary team member training instructional venue (in-class instruction, Web-based module service-learning programs, and faculty disentanglement workshops) and their formative evaluation.

The interdisciplinary team member training venue were discloseed within the context of rural health services, the diverse and manifold needs of consumers, limited access and isolation, and limited local health resources and services. lock opener in the development of the venue was the integration of opportunities to disentangle and practice interdisciplinary skills in rural communities.1,7 Likewise, the training was disentangleed knowing that the targeted allied health programs were located far from those rural areas where the learners would work and that the individual allied health academys (e.g., occupational therapy, physical therapy, public health) themselves might not be upon the same campus. Furthermore, attracting and building commitment among faculty and scholars to travel to distant locations, as well as identifying willing community sites where learners could serve, would require an ongoing effort and commitment.

Interdisciplinary Teamwork Training Model: A Four-Pronged Approach

The WMAHEC type described in this report prepared scholars to be interdisciplinary team members who could work in rural settings. A basic belief of the model was that teams have connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts structure, process, and outcomes (Table 1)8 Participants were trained to view themselves as effective team members who contributed unique expertise and experiences for the objects of disease prevention and health promotion. Because integrating interdisciplinary team training into various professional preparation programs at different universities required flexibility, four instructional approaches were included: in-class instruction, Web-based module service-learning programs, and faculty disclosure workshops.