The recent and swift changes (at the philosophical, political and economic level) in the health and social care sectors asks for the assessment of the existence of a match between the competencies acquired in the occupational therapy education and those required at the workplace, in order to ensure the quality of graduates. A key challenge for the educators is how to plan efficient educational programmes which calls for the redefinition of curriculum goals relevant to the quality of practice. We looked for new strategies to address these questions in the form of a group-based research with two main objectives: (1) to identify the core competencies required for the occupational therapy practice at different work settings in Portugal; and (2) to identify the contents of an occupational therapy educational program, suitable to attain the core competencies found. Interviews, discussion with two panels of experts, questionnaires and the Delphi technique have been used involving a total of 120 Occupational Therapists working at different settings including at the two Portuguese occupational therapy schools. The research provides the background on how to base the occupational therapy course content in relationship to the needs of the workplace environment. Above all, this study is a contribution in finding methodologies by working with the practitioners’ experts in order to convert their knowledge and professional demands into educational programs.

Background, aim and objectives: Evaluating quality of care is essential when redesigning or improving practice. Medicines reconciliation (MR) on hospital admission is now policy in the UK. It is the process of obtaining an up-to-date and accurate medication list and documenting any discrepancies. The overall aim of this work was to develop quality indicators to evaluate MR on admission to hospital; the specific objectives include developing MR quality indicators, achieving consensus on their appropriateness and testing their feasibility by applying them in a hospital setting. Design: The study was designed in three parts, each consisting of three steps. In part I, ideas about potential indicators were obtained from two sources: a literature search and the nominal group technique. These ideas were converted to potential indicators using criteria for good indicators and then reviewed by nine reviewers. Part II was designed to achieve consensus on the appropriateness of the indicators to evaluate MR. It involved pre-piloting, piloting and conducting the main two-round online Delphi study. Several methods were used to approach predefined experts. Part III involved applying in hospital settings those MR indicators that had achieved consensus. It included developing operational definitions and directly observing the MR process as conducted by pharmacy staff in two hospitals. The indicators were further tested by collecting data about the MR process for all patients seen by pharmacy staff on one weekday in the two hospitals. Results: A systematic approach was followed to develop MR indicators. The idea generation step produced over 90 ideas about potential indicators, which were converted to 85 MR indicators. The assessment by the nine practicing hospital pharmacists discarded 29 of them and the remaining 56 MR indicators were carried forward to the Delphi study, during which 41 indicators achieved consensus as appropriate for evaluating MR on admission to hospital. In the feasibility study, 5 MR indicators were found not to be feasible and three not adequately assessed, while 33 indicators were considered feasible to be used in a hospital setting. Conclusions: This work provided a novel list of 33 indicators that achieved consensus and were found to be feasible to evaluate the MR process on admission to hospital. Further research should explore the use of these indicators, among others, to assess and improve the overall quality of care provided to patients on admission and throughout the hospitalization journey.

The recent and swift changes (at the philosophical, political and economic level) in the health and social care sectors asks for the assessment of the existence of a match between the competencies acquired in the occupational therapy education and those required at the workplace, in order to ensure the quality of graduates. A key challenge for the educators is how to plan efficient educational programmes which calls for the redefinition of curriculum goals relevant to the quality of practice. We looked for new strategies to address these questions in the form of a group-based research with two main objectives: (1) to identify the core competencies required for the occupational therapy practice at different work settings in Portugal; and (2) to identify the contents of an occupational therapy educational program, suitable to attain the core competencies found. Interviews, discussion with two panels of experts, questionnaires and the Delphi technique have been used involving a total of 120 Occupational Therapists working at different settings including at the two Portuguese occupational therapy schools. The research provides the background on how to base the occupational therapy course content in relationship to the needs of the workplace environment. Above all, this study is a contribution in finding methodologies by working with the practitioners’ experts in order to convert their knowledge and professional demands into educational programs. / Doctorat en sciences sociales, Orientation sciences du travail / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished