Collaborative Clinical Placements: Interactions Among Students From Different Programs

Shortages of clinical placements for health care students in Canada have led education and health care organizations to explore innovative ways to increase placement capacity. One way to increase capacity is to bring together students from various programs for their placements, which also allows students to learn about each other's roles and how to work collaboratively. This article describes shared placements for students from bachelor of nursing, practical nurse, and health care aide programs.

Qualitative interviews were used.

Students benefited from this approach by learning about the roles of other providers and how to coordinate care with others. The challenges of the approach were competition among students for opportunities to practice clinical procedures and concerns about how to communicate with other students when sharing the care of patients.

The objectives of increasing student placement capacity and expanding collaboration opportunities were partially achieved through this approach to clinical education.