With the fourth annual Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition coming up in autumn 2023, we are hoping to see even more student participants from a variety of disciplines across the University. The case competition offers students – whether they are in public health, liberal arts, nursing, veterinary medicine, public policy, law school, or any other field interested in health – the beneficial opportunity to work collaboratively with an interprofessional team.
About the competition
The Minnesota Northstar Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (MN GWEP) will host the fourth annual Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition in autumn 2023. The competition kicks off in September and offers students across several university campuses a unique opportunity to develop interprofessional collaboration skills by creating a patient-centered and culturally responsive plan of care for a simulated medically complex older adult. The friendly competition involves not only students from the University of Minnesota campuses, but those from St. Louis University and other Missouri schools as well. The competition culminates with the University of Minnesota’s top team competing against the winning team from St. Louis University’s GWEP.
This year in 2023, it is our hope to continue to involve student leaders from UMN Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Dentistry (dental students and hygienist students), Allied Health/Occupational Therapy, and Nursing. Specifically this year we are working to have participation from more diverse students. We hope to have more participants from UMN Public Health, Medicine, Social Work, Psychology or other behavioral health professions, Law School, Public Policy, Long Term Care Administration, and others you can see below where participation has been low in the past. In order to accomplish this goal, it is essential that instructors from those professions will help us encourage these students to join this unique interprofessional learning opportunity.
In 2022, students involved in the Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition included the following:
Volunteers serve as expert coaches and judges. We are grateful for the contributions of faculty, staff, and post-graduate and postdoctoral fellows/residents and community experts in geriatric care to offer support for this interprofessional activity.
In 2022, expert volunteers involved in the Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition included:
Coaches serve as mentors and consultants providing guidance. They can offer feedback, raise questions, give comments on the presentation, and point the team to useful resources. The coaches assist their teams by:
- Encouraging them to set their first meeting
- Keeping the team on track
- Helping the team remain focused on the collaborative competencies
- Advising the team regarding available resources (personal contacts, journal sources, books, individuals from other professions, etc.)
- Encouraging the team to work together collaboratively
- Helping teams set up a presentation rehearsal and offering feedback if they wish
It is important for faculty/professional coaches to allow students to do their own research, develop their own recommendations, and create their own presentation for the case competition.
Judges score video-recorded team presentations using a rubric of interprofessional competencies and provide constructive written feedback to student teams.
Overall in the annual Interprofessional Geriatric Case Competition, we hope to see that the team presentations make a good attempt at the following:
- Adequate analysis of the information provided to identify patient problems.
- Clear evidence that the patient and care partners were the focus of care.
- Recommendations for care interventions unburdened from concerns about healthcare financing or years of experience with entrenched beliefs.
- Evidence of developing interprofessional competencies – working together as a team, valuing their own and others’ contributions, respectful teamwork, communication, values and ethics.
- Ideally, teams will come up with some innovative strategies for managing challenges of care and teamwork in caring for the patient and family.
- The presentation should indicate that there was intentional/deliberate interprofessional collaboration.
- Evidence that team members learned more about each other and additional disciplines as they prepared their plan.
- Evidence of self- and team-reflection on challenges and rewards of a variety of viewpoints and strengths on team and collaboration.
Again in 2023, we look forward to collaborating with professionals as judges and coaches, and expanding the representation of students involved in the competition.
Please sign up by 9/27/23. Read more and register on this website: z.umn.edu/UMNCaseCompetition