Publications

The interprofessional clinical experience (ICE) was designed to introduce trainees to the roles of different healthcare professionals, provide an opportunity to participate in an interprofessional team, and familiarize trainees with caring for older adults in the nursing home setting. Healthcare trainees from seven professions (dentistry, medicine, nursing, nutrition, occupational therapy, optometry and social work) participated in ICE. This program consisted of individual patient interviews followed by a team meeting to develop a comprehensive care plan. To evaluate the impact of ICE on attitudinal change, the UCLA Geriatric Attitudes Scale and a post-experience assessment were used. The post-experience assessment evaluated the trainees' perception of potential team members' roles and attitudes about interprofessional team care of the older adult. Attitudes toward interprofessional teamwork and the older adult were generally positive. ICE is a novel program that allows trainees across healthcare professions to experience interprofessional teamwork in the nursing home setting.

BACKGROUND

Due to rising rates of opioid addiction and overdose among individuals on chronic opioid therapy, aberrant drug-related behaviors (ADRBs) are an important and challenging issue. Our objective was to qualitatively investigate the documentation of ADRBs in the medical record.

METHODS

Manually abstracted provider notes from an HIV primary care clinic were analyzed using content analysis methods.

RESULTS

Categories of ADRBs identified included patients requesting opioids, obtaining nonprescribed opioids, and becoming emotional about opioids. We also identified several types of provider language used when documenting ADRBs, including purely descriptive language and emotional language such as labeling, frustration, and concern, and responses such as setting conditions for opioid prescription and action-oriented language.

CONCLUSIONS

The impact of including emotional language in the medical record is unknown. Development of instruments that can be used to facilitate ADRB documentation, as well as evidence-based approaches to addressing ADRBs, is needed.