Allied health teams & Inter-professional assessment of students: a natural progression?

In allied health (AH) education there is increasing focus on inter-professional (IP) clinical placements to allow students to develop collaborative skills and AH students are increasingly being placed in non-traditional, IP settings. There is little literature on student assessment in these settings. Holt et al (2010) suggest that as practice placements become scarce, inter-professional assessment (IPA) will become a major source of feedback for students. IPA, where professionals have input into the assessment of students from other professions, could be seen as a natural progression (Dearnley, Walker & Fairhall, 2010). When we developed our ‘generic assessment form' and inter-professional assessment (IPA) process for a final year ‘non-traditional' IP placement in Vietnam for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, and podiatry students, there was significant commonality across the professions (Tan, Flavell, Ferns & Jordan, 2015, Appendix 1). This ‘generic assessment form' was based on the competency requirements for each individual profession, and was developed using a similar process to that used by Morison & Stewart (2005). Our team of clinical educators from four professions were involved in development of both the assessment tool and the assessment process. Collaborative review of the first year process was used to refine the process for subsequent years. A qualitative research project using focus groups with clinical educators who had been involved in supervising students on the Allied Health inter-professional Vietnam placement over the years 2012-2016 was then conducted. This paper explores the strengths, challenges, and outcomes of this inter-professional approach to assessing undergraduate students, from the perspective of the clinical educators, and considers the potential for application of this approach to a broader range of non-traditional placements. It also discusses models of inter-professional assessment as an innovative way of preparing AH professionals for their future work.