How ACPs Are Creating Supervised Portfolios

We’ve recent­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port some inno­v­a­tive use of iCon­nect which we hope will be of inter­est to you.

As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, Advanced lev­el prac­ti­tion­ers (ACPs) have been high­light­ed as one of the key ways in which gov­ern­ment plans to “bet­ter meet local health needs by pro­vid­ing enhanced capac­i­ty, capa­bil­i­ty, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and effi­cien­cy with­in mul­ti-pro­fes­sion­al teams”.

As a result, HEE has devel­oped the Core Capa­bil­i­ties Frame­work, which requires ACPs to sub­mit a port­fo­lio as evi­dence of their competency.

In this post you’ll discover:

1. The chal­lenges of gath­er­ing ACP port­fo­lio evidence.
2. How video sup­ports ACPs while gath­er­ing evidence.
3. How iCon­nect helps ACPs gath­er evi­dence and improve their prac­tice faster.

The challenges of gathering ACP portfolio evidence

ACPs are cur­rent­ly required to include text-based learn­ing logs, work­place-based assess­ments (COT, CBD, and CEPs), and records of achieve­ment in their port­fo­lios of evidence.

There are two dis­tinct hur­dles on this route that could hin­der ACP development:

1. Obser­va­tions for work­place-based assess­ments are tra­di­tion­al­ly done in-per­son, requir­ing the ACP and their super­vi­sor to free up time in their busy sched­ules and to be in the same place at the same time.
2. The port­fo­lio cre­ation and sub­mis­sion process has no way of pro­vid­ing an asyn­chro­nous super­vi­so­ry ele­ment to ensure ACPs are actu­al­ly devel­op­ing as they should while gath­er­ing their evidence.
3. The con­se­quences of this could be incom­plete or poor port­fo­lios of evi­dence and lost oppor­tu­ni­ties for for­ma­tive assess­ment and feed­back, which would increase train­ing costs.

Not only are the afore­men­tioned bar­ri­ers impor­tant to over­come to ensure ACPs are best equipped to suc­ceed, but it’s even more impor­tant for the NHS, who want ACPs to devel­op in a time­ly man­ner with­out com­pro­mis­ing on the qual­i­ty of prac­tice they expect.

What is asynchronous supervision?

Asyn­chro­nous super­vi­sion refers to the pos­si­bil­i­ty for a super­vi­sor to access super­vi­sion con­tent at any time.

In this con­text, video tech­nol­o­gy enables ACPs to record their prac­tice to be shared with their super­vi­sor who can review and pro­vide feed­back in their own time, with­out hav­ing to sched­ule time with the ACP.

We’ve found this mod­el works best for effec­tive­ly scal­ing work­place-based train­ing and qual­i­ty assur­ance ini­tia­tives, while reduc­ing the demand on staff and resources.

How video supports ACPs while gathering evidence

The main pur­pose of ACP port­fo­lios is to assess whether or not the prac­ti­tion­er demon­strates the capa­bil­i­ties required with­in the Core Capa­bil­i­ties Frame­work, mean­ing they’re suf­fi­cient­ly skilled to ful­fill their respec­tive roles.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, writ­ten evi­dence of capa­bil­i­ties tends to be a sum­ma­tive approach to com­pe­ten­cy assess­ments. There is lit­tle oppor­tu­ni­ty for the ACP to improve along the way.

By allow­ing ACPs to record their prac­tice for for­ma­tive assess­ment, they’re giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve faster, using very spe­cif­ic evi­dence-based feed­back pro­vid­ed by their supervisors.

Using both qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive feed­back through­out the evi­dence gath­er­ing process, ACPs can very quick­ly under­stand which capa­bil­i­ties they need to work on, in order to achieve the lev­el of prac­tice expect­ed by the NHS.

Enter iCon­nect, a secure video-based train­ing and qual­i­ty assur­ance platform.

How iConnect helps ACPs gather evidence and improve their practice faster

iCon­nect is used for record­ing con­sul­ta­tions in-per­son, online, or on the phone, for the pur­pos­es of pro­vid­ing feed­back, reflec­tion, shar­ing best prac­tice, accred­i­ta­tion and more.

Below we out­line sev­er­al ways in which we are sup­port­ing ACPs dur­ing their port­fo­lio gath­er­ing process.

Dedicated area for gathering evidence

On iCon­nect, we’ve built cus­tom ACP Port­fo­lio Groups with inte­grat­ed tools which can be cre­at­ed quick­ly and eas­i­ly by the ACPs them­selves, giv­ing them com­plete con­trol of their development.

The ACP port­fo­lio group pro­vides a log­i­cal pro­gres­sion for both ACPs and their super­vi­sors to fol­low dur­ing the evi­dence gath­er­ing process, result­ing in a much smoother expe­ri­ence all round.

Downloadable learning log

Since evi­dence for the ACP Core Capa­bil­i­ties Frame­work is a text-based sub­mis­sion, we want­ed to pro­vide a way for them to do this.

So, we’ve cre­at­ed a date-stamped learn­ing log where ACPs sim­ply pop­u­late fields in a form, which can then be down­loaded as a PDF when required for submission.

This same func­tion­al­i­ty has been applied to the ACPs Record of Achieve­ment, giv­ing them an easy and sys­tem­at­ic way of com­plet­ing their required tasks.

Recording consultations on any device

ACPs can secure­ly record their prac­tice, no mat­ter where it happens.

iCon­nect sup­ports ACPs to:

1. Record in-per­son con­sul­ta­tions using our app, which is avail­able on both Apple and Android.
2. Record online con­sul­ta­tions using our built-in video-con­fer­enc­ing or screen cap­ture fea­tures which work on any com­put­er with an inter­net browser.
3. Record phone con­sul­ta­tion using our call record­ing feature.

The iConnect platform is fully GDPR compliant.

Work­ing pri­mar­i­ly in health­care and edu­ca­tion, we under­stand the impor­tance of pri­va­cy and data secu­ri­ty and adhere to the high­est stan­dards of data pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions. So ACPs and their super­vi­sors can rest assured that their record­ings are safe and will remain confidential.

Self-reflection and remote feedback

The aim of the Core Capa­bil­i­ties Frame­work is to ensure that ACPs are able to effec­tive­ly exe­cute their duties. Part of this process will inevitably involve some lev­el of prac­ti­cal learn­ing, through self-reflec­tion and feedback.

Record­ing prac­tice gives ACPs a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to under­stand what they’re doing from an observer’s per­spec­tive, often illu­mi­nat­ing a host of poten­tial improvements.

For addi­tion­al sup­port, using iConnect’s cloud-based solu­tion, ACPs can asyn­chro­nous­ly receive feed­back on their prac­tice from a super­vi­sor, any­time and from anywhere.

Using time-stamped com­ments, super­vi­sors can pro­vide very spe­cif­ic feed­back on a par­tic­u­lar moment of prac­tice. ACPs can then respond to these com­ments, cre­at­ing an ongo­ing pro­fes­sion­al dia­logue that takes place with­out the restric­tions of time and space.

To ensure ACPs are on track with the Core Capa­bil­i­ties Frame­work, we’ve cre­at­ed assess­ment rubrics using our Forms tool that super­vi­sors can use to pro­vide time-stamped, objec­tive feed­back. These rubrics are based on the port­fo­lio and assess­ment obser­va­tion forms pro­vid­ed in the ACP frame­work: COT, CBD and CEPs.

Using Forms, ACPs receive action­able feed­back they can imme­di­ate­ly apply to their prac­tice, short­en­ing the time it takes to iden­ti­fy and resolve poten­tial challenges.

Guided ACP experience

One of the main ben­e­fits of pro­vid­ing ACPs a struc­ture for gath­er­ing evi­dence, is that it empow­ers them to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the devel­op­ment of their own prac­tice, not only rely­ing on feed­back from a supervisor.

The guid­ed expe­ri­ence ensures ACPs are bet­ter pre­pared, and pro­vides real­is­tic bench­marks for them to attain through­out the evi­dence gath­er­ing process.

In summary

iCon­nect has cre­at­ed a solu­tion to facil­i­tate the gath­er­ing of evi­dence for the ACP Core Capa­bil­i­ties Frame­work, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly ensur­ing ACPs devel­op their prac­tice through self-reflec­tion and con­tex­tu­alised, evi­dence-based feed­back from their supervisors.

By remov­ing the need for ACPs and their super­vi­sors to be in the same place at the same time, we’ve saved sig­nif­i­cant time and resources while ensur­ing ACPs are best equipped to succeed.

If you’d like to know more about our ACP solu­tion and want to see it for your­self, feel free to request a demonstration.