Interdisciplinary Health Fairs for Older Adults and the Value of Interprofessional Service Learning

Abstract

As health care moves from the acute care environment to the community environment, innovative methods are needed to prepare future clinicians. Allied health professionals need to work with one another and, therefore, be familiar with other disciplines. To address the gap in interprofessional allied health education nursing and social work, colleagues from 2 universities developed interdisciplinary health fairs that addressed the needs of 2 community senior centers as a service-learning project for their geriatric courses. All health fair stations were designed, implemented, and evaluted by students, with faculty supervision. Following the health fairs, students completed an adaptation of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS; McFayden et al., 2005: Parsell & Bligh, 1999) and open-ended questions about their interpropfessional experience. Results of this questionnaire will be presented. Service-learning projects as a teaching methodology will also be discussed.

Keywords:

• Interprofessional education
• service learning
• health-fairs
• older adults

Notes

Research funded through the University of Georgia Service-Learning Fellows' Program.