ECLECTIC

Project Outline

The proposed project builds upon a HRB-funded applied partnership project which involved collaboration between the UCD research team and the National Clinical Programme for Older People (NCPOP). In this project we co-designed the ECLECTIC framework which describes the core competencies for interprofessional collaboration in community specialist teams for older people. The ECLECTIC framework has been incorporated into the operational guidelines developed by NCPOP for older person community specialist teams. The planned implementation phase of the national programme will see the establishment of approximately 35 ICTs in 2022-23. These teams and will be supported by the programme to deliver integrated services and pathways for older people with complex health and social care needs. The aim of the programme is to shift the delivery of care away from acute hospitals towards community-based, planned and coordinated care. 

We propose to conduct a realist evaluation of the implementation of the ECLECTIC framework within these newly forming community specialist teams. This proposed realist evaluation will see the continuation of the successful collaboration between UCD researchers and the NCPOP which was established through the co-design of the ECLECTIC framework. To the best of our knowledge, ECLECTIC is the only framework that provides practical guidance for building competencies for interprofessional collaboration in the context of older people’s integrated care. A key strength of our framework is the co-design approach to its development. We engaged HCP stakeholders representing all of the disciplines working in the integration of older people’s care in the co-design of this framework. Public and patient representatives (PPRs) were supported to play a central role in the co-design and validation of the final framework. Furthermore, the competencies described are contextualised through in-depth qualitative exploration of interprofessional working in two different types of interdisciplinary care teams for older people.

The proposed study will adopt a realist-informed process evaluation of how community specialist teams integrating care for older people adopt and adapt the ECLECTIC framework for the development of core competencies for interprofessional collaboration. The proposed realist evaluation will generate evidence regarding the outcomes associated with interprofessional collaboration in the care of older people. Furthermore, it will provide a nuanced realist understanding of the influence of contextual conditions in enabling or inhibiting mechanisms that foster, enhance and sustain interprofessional collaboration. This explanatory theory will expand the ECLECTIC framework with an understanding of what works in supporting interdisciplinary teams to develop competency in interprofessional collaboration, for whom does it work, in what contexts and how. This understanding will underpin curriculum development for team-based education and training of HCPs, a key priority area in national health strategy. It will also inform future international research by providing a foundational theory to support exploration of how interdisciplinary teams across multiple settings, specialities and contexts can build competencies for interprofessional collaboration. In this way, the proposed project will provide a transformative direction for future international health service workforce development.