The Challenges of Becoming Virtual: The Experience of a Rehabilitation Community of Practice on Stroke Care
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Abstract
Background
The desire to address informational, management, and relationships gaps between the different care providers involved in stroke care delivery to optimize continuity of care, led to the creation, seven years ago, of a Montreal Stroke Network (MSN). Over the past years, the MSN, bringing together various stakeholders including: patients; caregivers; clinicians; managers; and researchers, has developed several projects covering the continuum of care. The great majority of members are active participants in one of the four communities of practice (CoP) in the areas of acute care, prevention/education, community reintegration, and functional rehabilitation. Members have the opportunity to meet face to face on a monthly basis to advance the project of their respective CoP; otherwise communications are e-mail based. A Web 2.0 platform was developed to create a networking environment to support communications, facilitate knowledge sharing between participants with respect to implementation of best practice changes in stroke care. This paper reports the experience of the rehabilitation CoP; highlighting the challenges faced by participants in maintaining and developing active projects and the challenges faced by the research team in building research capacity. Users’ characteristics and utilization data will be presented.
Methods
Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. Participants completed questionnaires measuring socio-demographic characteristics, their practice style profile and their perception of stroke best practices. Activities on the platform were monitored. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with 12 members of the virtual rehabilitation CoP (high and low users) to capture their perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the Web 2.0 platform and the challenges faced by their CoP.
Results
To date, over 350 rehabilitation professionals registered to the Web 2.0 collaborative platform. Participants are mostly women (89%) with a large representation of physiotherapists and occupational therapists. However, only 10% of members actively wrote a message or responded to a communication on the discussion forum. Blogs written by the research team are read by an average of 27 members but never commented. Users (viewers and writers) visit on average once a week and spend 11 minutes per visit. Automated e-mails with targeted content increase utilization rates. After four months of activity, no new project has emerged from the rehabilitation CoP and most active members are new members to the CoP.
Conclusions
This project advances our understanding of the role and capacity of Web 2.0 applications in supporting interprofessional CoP to accelerate implementation of best practices. Our study highlights the difficulties in changing practices in regard to knowledge sharing and information seeking. It also raises questions on the acceptance of Web 2.0 as a valid and accepted mean to advance today’s clinical practice.
The desire to address informational, management, and relationships gaps between the different care providers involved in stroke care delivery to optimize continuity of care, led to the creation, seven years ago, of a Montreal Stroke Network (MSN). Over the past years, the MSN, bringing together various stakeholders including: patients; caregivers; clinicians; managers; and researchers, has developed several projects covering the continuum of care. The great majority of members are active participants in one of the four communities of practice (CoP) in the areas of acute care, prevention/education, community reintegration, and functional rehabilitation. Members have the opportunity to meet face to face on a monthly basis to advance the project of their respective CoP; otherwise communications are e-mail based. A Web 2.0 platform was developed to create a networking environment to support communications, facilitate knowledge sharing between participants with respect to implementation of best practice changes in stroke care. This paper reports the experience of the rehabilitation CoP; highlighting the challenges faced by participants in maintaining and developing active projects and the challenges faced by the research team in building research capacity. Users’ characteristics and utilization data will be presented.
Methods
Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. Participants completed questionnaires measuring socio-demographic characteristics, their practice style profile and their perception of stroke best practices. Activities on the platform were monitored. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with 12 members of the virtual rehabilitation CoP (high and low users) to capture their perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the Web 2.0 platform and the challenges faced by their CoP.
Results
To date, over 350 rehabilitation professionals registered to the Web 2.0 collaborative platform. Participants are mostly women (89%) with a large representation of physiotherapists and occupational therapists. However, only 10% of members actively wrote a message or responded to a communication on the discussion forum. Blogs written by the research team are read by an average of 27 members but never commented. Users (viewers and writers) visit on average once a week and spend 11 minutes per visit. Automated e-mails with targeted content increase utilization rates. After four months of activity, no new project has emerged from the rehabilitation CoP and most active members are new members to the CoP.
Conclusions
This project advances our understanding of the role and capacity of Web 2.0 applications in supporting interprofessional CoP to accelerate implementation of best practices. Our study highlights the difficulties in changing practices in regard to knowledge sharing and information seeking. It also raises questions on the acceptance of Web 2.0 as a valid and accepted mean to advance today’s clinical practice.
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