Objective: To determine if the Parkinson’s Foundation (PF) Parkinson’s disease (PD) Team Training (TT) empowers Parkinson’s interprofessional healthcare teams to make changes in their care plans and treatment coordination that lead to better coordinated care for patients.

Background: Since 2003, PF has offered the TT program to healthcare professionals in the community, both individual healthcare professionals and those who were working in, or establishing, PD programs using interprofessional care teams. It had not been formally studied as to whether PF TT could also be beneficial to an established PD care team.

Method: In October 2022, two large PD PF Centers of Excellence, including 39 team members participated in the TT in-person program, along with 53 attendees from various community PD care teams ranging from 3 to 8 team members. All team members were encouraged to attend, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, dieticians, pharmacists, occupational, physical, speech, and music therapists, social workers, and other team members working with persons with PD.  Participants completed surveys before and immediately after the training to assess learning and benefit of the program. Additional surveys will be completed 6 months and 1 year after the training.

Results: After TT, 100% felt confident in their ability to care for those with PD compared to 74% before TT and 98% felt confident in their ability to work with care partners compared to 77% before TT. Before TT 14% were completely knowledgeable about their role in the team compared to 43% after TT and 28% felt they were slightly knowledgeable about their role initially compared to 1% after TT.  In addition, after TT, 99% agreed that they learned more about the roles of other team members, 98% agreed that the training had a positive impact on the care they provide to persons with PD and 100% agreed that there was room for improvement in their Parkinson’s clinic.

Conclusion: Team Training offered by the Parkinson’s Foundation was shown to have a positive impact on interprofessional team members of established PD Centers.  Attendees were more confident in the care they provide to both those with PD and care partners, increased their knowledge of the roles of other team members, and better understood their own roles within the PD care teams.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/parkinsons-team-training-is-beneficial-for-new-and-established-pd-centers/