Innovating Pediatric Emergency Care and Learning Through Interprofessional Briefing and Workplace-Based Assessment: A Qualitative Study

Managing pediatric emergencies can be both clinically and educationally challenging with little existing research on how to improve resident involvement. Moreover, nursing input is frequently ignored. We report here on an innovation using interprofessional briefing (iB) and workplace-based assessment (iWBA) to improve the delivery of care, the involvement of residents, and their assessment. METHODS: Over a period of 3 months, we implement an innovation using iB and iWBA for residents providing emergency pediatric care. A constructivist thematic analysis approach was used to collect and analyze data from 4 focus groups (N = 18) with nurses (4), supervisors (5), and 2 groups of residents (4 + 5). RESULTS: Residents, supervisors, and nurses all felt that iB had positive impacts on learning, teamwork, and patient care. Moreover, when used, iB seemed to play an important role in enhancing the impact of iWBA. Although iB and iWBA seemed to be accepted and participants described important impacts on emergency department culture, conducting of both iB and iWBA could be sometimes challenging as opposed to iB alone mainly because of time constraints. CONCLUSIONS: Interprofessional briefing and iWBA are promising approaches for not only resident involvement and learning during pediatric emergencies but also enhancing team function and patient care. Nursing involvement was pivotal in the success of the innovation enhancing both care and resident learning.