Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
to which needs are being met, opportunities utilised or conditions
identified and solutions tailor made for these. In the partnership
between MIT and the identified stakeholders, the effectiveness has
been mentioned by all concerned. “So I guess that the other thing
that I feel really good about is the partnership MIT have with
Counties, is that we have an education provider that is responsive
to what the changing need is. It will have to stay responsive,
because the needs change as the application changes. So there is a
macro political stuff and then we came down to the DHB and then
we got down to developing a workforce that met the needs of the
nation” (Participant 4: 50-59).
Moreover Lawson (2004:228) stated that collaboration could end in
innovative programmes leading to integrated social and health
services. If this was possible, the stakeholders should be quite
satisfied with the collaboration process. To this effect, one of the
stakeholders said: “It is the community mental health services
which are beginning and there aren’t many places that do have
community mental health people . . . So going forward into the
future, that is going to be a role that we develop more and it may
be something that will need to be adjusted over time, and that can
be done by the clinical placements that people go into” (Participant
6: 102-111). With regard to mental health, a participant indicated:
“I am uncertain around some of the other parts of it, and possibly it
would be interesting to look at the mental health aspect of the
curriculum. If we have moved forward and plans are changing, but
in terms of the community. . . “(Participant 6: 97-102). The
following comment indicated stakeholder satisfaction from the
perspective of the acute care institutions,: “I do know and I have
had feedback, from Sarah 9 , that they are much happier with, they
feel much more involved with the students, they feel much more
part of the curriculum and they feel happier with what they are
seeing” (Participant 1:73-78). And: “I think MIT very much tried to
capture up the traditional nursing partnerships, in fact they went
out to find new partnerships, and we included primary health care,
community services, mental health services, so we did our hospital,
mental health community primary health care. We went out, met
with all those groups, we had a primary health care nurse actually
join and become part of the curriculum writer and . . . ” (Participant
4: 65-74).
Boswell and Cannon (2005:2) stated that the collaboration between
institutions could be strengthened through networking, as one
would have the opportunity to draw on resources outside these
institutions, while simultaneously building a team working towards
achieving common goals. A participant supported this idea by
9 = Name changed
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