A New Model to Advance a Collaborative Clinical Education Placement Process: A Consortium Core Network

Area of Science:

• Physical Therapy Education
• Collaborative Healthcare Training
• Clinical Placement Logistics

Background:

• Contemporary physical therapist (PT) education faces challenges in clinical education (CE) placements.
• Collaboration between PT academic programs and clinical partners is advocated for sustainable and mutually beneficial processes.
• The 2014 Clinical Education Summit highlighted the need for innovative solutions to CE inefficiencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the design and implementation of the Ohio Kentucky Consortium of Physical Therapy Educators (Consortium) Consortium Core Network's (CCN) centralized PT CE Placement Process (PT-CEPP) model.
• To share participant perspectives on the PT-CEPP model's implementation.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of a novel, centralized approach to PT CE placements.

Main Methods:

• A novel 5-phase centralized PT-CEPP model was designed and implemented within the Exxat educational management platform.
• The Consortium established a Steering Committee with representation from key stakeholders.
• Post-implementation, a Qualtrics survey with open-text responses was used to gather participant perspectives, followed by thematic analysis.

Main Results:

• The CCN included 100% of invited Programs (14/14) and 28% of invited Partners (101/364).
• Initial implementation resulted in 1,005 offers and 549 CE placements.
• Participant feedback highlighted role-specific benefits: Partners valued "centralization," while Programs valued "process."

Conclusions:

• The shift to a centralized PT-CEPP model offers valuable lessons for optimizing processes in physical therapist clinical education.
• The Consortium's experience demonstrates the potential for improved sustainability in CE placement systems.
• Future iterations of the PT-CEPP model can be refined based on participant feedback and outcomes.