In healthcare studies which include professional regulation, student learning in clinical practice is an essential part of the curriculum. Curricula are designed with close input from the national health services, and on graduation, students are expected to have sufficient experience to practice independently within their profession. Simultaneously, a shortage of healthcare professionals in certain countries (e.g. in 2012, WHO estimated that the UK alone required an influx of around 40,000 nurses) is stimulating mobility. In these cases, healthcare professionals who trained within the system they intend to work in, are able to immediately integrate to deliver care, unlike other professionals coming from abroad, who require extra time and resources to integrate them with national specificities of the health system. Currently, the supply of these traineeships is lower than it should be due to: • complexity in meeting National and EU professional regulatory criteria for traineeship placement recognition and transfer instruments to allow for periods of training abroad to be validated and recognised for purposes of credentialisation • insufficient information on availability of cross-border traineeships (both on how to offer them and how to subscribe to them in regulated professions) • perceived difficulties on the side of students and of staff in participating and facilitating such traineeships To address these issues, HEALINT will develop: • a protocol for certification of hospitals to receive trainees which will allow for the creation of a standing-list of suitable institutions qualified to work with Erasmus Charter Higher Education Institutions in the provision of traineeships • guidelines for evaluation of cross-border student traineeships which will specify a European standard for documenting, assessing and recognising credit acquired in training experiences abroad In addition, by authoring a monograph on transferability we will compile the lessons learned of the project and target decision makers in Higher Education as a whole, with the aim of facilitating their own introduction of similar schemes.
Supporting Internationalisation of Traineeships in the Healthcare Sector (HEALINT) was a three year education innovation project which completed in December 2020. By illuminating evidence based standards and tools to support to audit the clinical learning environment, HEALINT has transformed professional and vocational discourse relating to the quality and impact of learning for clinical practice. HEALINT offers a protocol and tools for European application and international discussion and debate within healthcare settings. HEALINT Objectives 1. to develop a protocol for certification of hospitals to receive trainees which will allow for the creation of a standing-list of suitable institutions qualified to work with Erasmus Charter Higher Education Institutions in the provision of traineeships 2. to establish guidelines for evaluation of cross-border student traineeships which could specify a European standard for documenting, assessing and recognising credit acquired in professional training experiences abroad. 3. a monograph on transferability to compile lessons learned in the project and target decision makers in Higher Education as a whole, with the aim of facilitating their own introduction of similar schemes Participants 29 experts from the seven partner institutions developed the project, including nurses and midwives, expert educators and academics, experts in auditing of quality and standards, and administrative and governance teams. Participation also included professional staff from National Health Trusts, students based locally, nationally and internationally and expert groups and policy makers within each of the partner nations and internationally. More than 450 stakeholders contributed to HEALINT developments. Activities Our innovative iterative development methodology enabled; • Scoping of 300 core references, creating an evidence base and shared consideration of commonality and diversity. This included National and International evidence, standards and ‘grey’ literature including policies and benchmarks. • Eight design and visioning 'hothouses' using ‘briefing papers’ creating new and exciting materials. Designs for an audit protocol, a checklist and tools for audit, training and evaluating clinical practice environments. Four briefing papers were written for guidance in each output. • 30 Review panels and 12 ‘live’ dry testing pilot activities, materials were shared with national experts and dry tested as pilots in clinical environments hosted by practice partners (Clinica Vistahermosa and Pori and Tarnow), • More than 8000 dissemination engagements, including publications, conference participation, policy influencing measures and media and social media publications. Results 1.An innovative protocol for clinical learning environment audit that illuminates detailed quality standards, including 16 themes and 31 sub-elements within four core quality priorities of Governance, Resources, Traineeship, Planning and Control and Recognition. Inclusion of ISO terminology facilitated concise and accurate interpretation of meaning and uniquely enables an international discourse to be assured. Use of the protocol can thus enable certification of hospitals to assure similarity of quality assurance across the EU nations. 2. An audit checklist and guideline for use by trained educators and nurses and midwives to use the protocol. The guidelines and the checklist work with the protocol to realise a common European Standard for documenting, assessing and recognising practice learning and training experiences abroad and may include provision for recognising experience and credit acquired. 3. Digitally available training materials and assessments to support learning and best practice on how to successfully undertake a quality audit of the clinical learning environment and use the materials in future partnerships. 4. Evaluation tools to embrace student experience as a component element of quality audit and enable retrospective and prospective comparison . Project resources are freely available under creative commons licence in the four project languages on the HEALINT website (www.HEALINT.eu) linked to EPALE and hosted in perpetuity by KIC. Impact HEALINT offered a unique cross-cultural opportunity for participants to contribute expertise in ensuring fantastic healthcare learning environments, thus enhancing long term safety across the world. The protocol forms the basis of an international workshop agreement (IWA 35) sponsored by British Standards Institute BSI and adopted by the international standards organisation ISO within 165 international member countries. Opportunities to hold dialogue appreciating different viewpoints and practices was identified as unanimously positive. Project resources are freely available under creative commons licence in the project languages on the HEALINT website (www.HEALINT.eu) linked to EPALE and hosted in perpetuity by KIC.