Background: Breast cancer treatment is complex, incorporating all modern day treatment options which means that many different professions are involved in this pathway. However it is widely known that the patients’ care and service pathway associated with breast cancer through early detection, diagnostic procedures and treatments to the follow- up phase is still discontinuous. Cancer detection, diagnosis and care coordination comprise timely and appropriate care, provided by interprofessional team including medical, nursing and allied health professionals. There is a need for this kind of education both at the basic education level of these health care professionals, in-house training of cancer clinics and learning materials for independent continuous professional development (CPD). An online learning package is a great resource to resolve the issue at some level. Objectives, methods to achieve them and outcomes of the project: Objective 1. (IO1) To review and create evidence based knowledge about interprofessional breast cancer care and treatments. For this purpose, methodology of integrative literature review, observational study and qualitative questionnaire study are used. As a result, the project will produce new research knowledge to develop healthcare teachers’ and staff understanding about breast cancer care and therapies. Objective 2: Improving the quality of breast cancer care and therapies and health care staff education related to this. To fulfill this objective, three e-learning modules comprising of 13 ECTS credits are developed by using evidence-based approach. The pedagogical principle with the interprofessional orientation to be used in the e-learning course will also follow the same evidence based approach. Module 1/IO2 focuses on interprofessional aspects of cancer care and treatment (3 ects). Module 2/IO3 focuses on breast cancer treatments and therapies (5 ects) Module 3/IO4 focuses on ensuring patient safety in breast cancer care and therapies (5 ects). Using evidence-based approach in the development and implementation of the e-learning packages will facilitate the development of life-long learning competences among the students and health care professionals who are taking part of the courses. Objective 3: Testing and implementing the e-learning package at the European level. For this purpose, e-learning modules created in the process will be developed, tested within the partnership, improved based on the feedback obtained from the participants, experts and the steering committee members, and made available as open access resources. This will lead to the most obvious results of the project, which is better competences related to interprofessional co-operation in breast cancer therapeutic phase among the teachers, students and health professionals who take part in the preparation and testing of the educational packages. Also, teaching and training activity C1- an intensive week will be carried out (on site + online) to introduce the course content and usage to potential users of the online course Target groups of project for IO1 to IO4. Inside the partnership: two cancer clinic nurses, biomedical laboratory scientists (n=about 30), higher education institutions staff (n=20) and students (n=about 80 annually) who will be participating, teaching and studying the topics. Outside the partnership, target groups are European (+wider globally) cancer clinics’ staff and higher education institutions teachers and students (n= several thousand in Europe only). At intensive course activity C1, there will be 15 participants who`s expenses are covered by project grant taking part on site + at least 15 participating with their own cost on site and about 10 online. In addition, HESAV (Swiss associate partner) will apply for funding from Swiss national agency Movetia to send 4 to 5 teachers for the Intensive course. Impacts: The most important impact on the participating organizations as well as on other organizations that take the e-learning package in their educational use will be the harmonization of quality and contents of education in the field of interprofessional breast cancer treatment and its safety. The e-learning package linked also to EU EPALE dissemination platform gives open access resources for education also for such educational and health care institutions who otherwise could not afford or for some other reason are not able to have that kind of learning resources. At participant level this means equal possibility for health care professionals like radiation therapists, radiographers, biomedical laboratory scientists and nurses and their educators to acquire competences on e-learning in general, interprofessional breast cancer treatment and how to ensure its safety. In addition, studying from such of e-learning materials increases health care staff and ordering clinical units’ understanding about different phases, procedures, actors and safety issues associated with breast cancer therapeutic phase.
Primary goal of the project was to create an evidence-based educational learning platform to enable better competences related to interprofessional co-operation in breast cancer therapeutic phase among the teachers, students and health professionals. The participants of the project who took part in the preparation and testing of the educational packages gained experience on the matter and as the created platform remains open-access for the target communities and everyone who is interested of the topic, the users will expectedly bring gained knowledge to their way of working and colleagues, to support their close ones, to be more aware as a patient and so on. Ultimately, to improve treatment outcomes and patient experience. None of this is possible to achieve without proper knowledge.
Online open-access courses in interprofessional breast cancer care are not widely available, if any. Yet, the beforementioned aspect of patient care and oncology specific learning modules are of high importance to educate specialist working with cancer patients to ensure they receive the best possible care. Drawn from this the project team developed idea of creating such a platform. To use transnational approach was important as different partners brought different perspectives as well as experience as the educational background is quite different among partner countries. Estonia as beneficiary for example has rather short history in educating radiation therapists and the community of specialists is small. Partners from Norway and associated partner from Switzerland expanded the expertise for this project. And this collaboration was important in other strands such as nursing, biomedical laboratory science, diagnostic radiography, medical safety etc as well. Eventually there was a remarkable pool of specialists-experts working for this project, adding their unique input. Without the support from Erasmus+ program, this collaboration would not have taken place and the platform would not have been developed in such large scale.