Improving pain management through interprofessional education: evaluation of a pilot project

A collaborative project between a district hospital and a local university resulted in a senior lecturer being seconded 2 days per week to facilitate the continued improvement in pain management. The rationale for this collaboration was to explore the utilization of innovative teaching methods to deliver education in practice and to develop further research in relation to pain management. An interprofessional pain steering group (IPSG) was established with representation from several services (acute pain, chronic pain, palliative care, physiotherapy, etc.). This group identified several objectives, one of which related to the improvement of pain management through interprofessional education based on the findings from previous audit work. This paper reports on the provision of interprofessional education in pain management and on the evaluation of the impact of this on patient outcomes and practitioner learning. The successes and challenges of this endeavour are discussed.