COIL: Innovation in Team-based Teaching A $250,000 donation from HSBC Bank Canada is funding an exciting new initiative at Bridgepoint Health that will help provide health care professionals with the tools they need to serve their clients. The Collaborative Online Interprofessional Learning (COIL) project concentrates on two integral areas in chronic disease management: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Type 2 Diabetes, with a focus on the extra challenges faced by the socially vulnerable who have these diseases.
“It has been shown that individuals with lower socio-economic status have poorer outcomes when they have diabetes or experience traumatic brain injury,” says Dr. Heather MacNeill, physiatrist at Bridgepoint Health and Project Lead for the HSBC COIL project. “We need to take into account the challenges these people face to help them surmount them.”
Interprofessional teams from St. Michael’s Hospital and Bridgepoint participated in the eight-week COIL pilot on TBI in April and May of 2009. The workshop combined adult learning principles and 21st century technology. Teams journeyed through a shared e-based curriculum consisting of six interactive modules, supplemented by profession specific self-directed learning. The electronic format of the modules allowed for tremendous flexibility by permitting learners to work at their own pace at a time that suited them. Total learner time commitment was estimated at two hours a week.
Online learning programs are rarely able to foster the team-based collaboration that is so crucial in health care. This is where COIL is unique. Each week, the teams gathered in a “virtual” classroom where they brought their skills and knowledge together to build a patient case history that reflected and reinforced their learning. Through the use of web-cams, learners will be able to make use of the vital visual and verbal signals that support excellent communication.
“With the complexity of our patients, working interprofessionally is crucial,” says Dr. MacNeill. “We are looking to create educational tools that foster real-life collaboration. COIL will do that.”
Additional funding from the University of Toronto will support the evaluation of the pilot and inform the full roll-out of the project in the fall of 2010. Development of an additional workshop on diabetes will be supported by a Medical Education Research Grant from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
To learn more please contact:
Dr. Heather MacNeill, MD, FRCPC
Elizabeth Hanna, MHSc, Reg CASLPO |