Journal of Interprofessional Care Baldwin Award Winner
Introduction
The Baldwin Award is in recognition of DeWitt ‘Bud’ Baldwin Jr.’s lifelong and distinguished contribution to interprofessional care. It was first awarded in 2009 for the best article of the 2008 volume of the Journal of Interprofessional Care. Each year since, a panel of judges recruited from the Journal’s editorial board assesses all the original articles published in a single volume and decides upon the winner based upon five key criteria for quality. Below, we detail the process and outcome of the most recent winner of the Baldwin Award – Volume 29.
The adjudication process
The judging panel consisted of three Journal editorial board members: Joanne Goldman (associate editor), John Toner (advisory panel member) and Scott Reeves (editor-in-chief). In judging the quality of work published in the Journal we used established criteria to select the winners. Each article was judged on the following:
-How it adds significantly to the evidence base informing interprofessional education/practice worldwide
-Its potential to have a significant impact on theory informing interprofessional education/practice
-Its potential to have a significant impact on research design in interprofessional education/practice
-Its clarity and cogency (i.e. written well, clearly argued)
-How it shows innovation in the field of interprofessional education/practice.
Only articles (not commentaries, IPEP guides, short reports, editorials) were considered for the Baldwin Award. Articles authored or co-authored by any of the judges were removed from consideration. Articles are scored on a scale from 1 to 10 on each criterion listed above. The six Journal issues that made up Volume 29 were divided equally among the judges so we each individually assess around 20 articles. However, one of us (SR) read all the articles to get an overall sense of quality and ensure parity across scores. Results from the initial assessment were collated and shared between the judges. We took the top two articles from each judge to the next round where we re-assessed each. Following discussion of these papers we arrived at our results.
The Baldwin Award winner
We came to a unanimous decision that the winners of this year Baldwin Award are the authors of the following series of papers:
Sarah Sims, Gillian Hewitt & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of collaboration, pooling of resources, learning and role blurring in interprofessional healthcare teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.939745
Gillian Hewitt, Sarah Sims & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of communication, influence and behavioural norms in interprofessional teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.941458
Sarah Sims, Gillian Hewitt & Ruth Harris, “Evidence of a shared purpose, critical reflection, innovation and leadership in interprofessional healthcare teams: a realist synthesis” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.941459
While this decision is unusual, as we have only ever presented this award to the authors of a single paper, the judges felt that the articles, considered together, provide key insights for the interprofessional field. The series actually spans four papers (the first was published in volume 28)
that collectively report findings from the first realist synthesis of interprofessional teamwork. The series collectively provides important conceptual, empirical and theoretical insights into key contextual factors, mechanisms and outcomes related to the functioning of interprofessional teams.
Runners Up
We want to also congratulate the two runner up papers which the judging panel felt were very strong contributions to the Journal:
Sirpa Saario, Kirsi Juhila & Suvi Raitakari, “Boundary work in inter-agency and interprofessional client transitions” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2015.1040490
This paper offers a thoughtful analysis of boundary work in inter-agency working using the social science theories of Thomas Gieryn and Andrew Abbott.
Daniel G. Dominguez, David S. Fike, Eric J. MacLaughlin & Joseph A. Zorek, “A comparison of the validity of two instruments assessing health professional student perceptions of interprofessional education and practice” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.947360
This paper which systematically compares the use of two interprofessional scales (Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams, Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education) offers a useful contribution to the statistical literature.
Honourable Mentions
In addition, it was agreed that honourable mentions should go to the following two papers:
Krist Thomson, Sue Outram, Conor Gilligan & Tracy Levett-Jones, “Interprofessional experiences of recent healthcare graduates: A social psychology perspective on the barriers to effective communication, teamwork, and patient-centred care” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2015.1040873
This paper offers a useful empirical insight of professional identity development using the lenses of social identity and realistic conflict theories.
Simon Kitto, Stuart Duncan Marshall, Sarah E. McMillan, Bill Shearer, Michael Buist, Rachel Grant, Monica Finnigan & Stuart Wilson, “Rapid response systems and collective (in)competence: An exploratory analysis of intraprofessional and interprofessional activation factors” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13561820.2014.984021
This paper provides a helpful analysis of rapid response systems using sociological theory, including socio-cultural approach developed Charles Bosk and medical dominance theory developed by Elliot Freidson.
Congratulations to all the authors whose papers have contributed to improving the scholarship of the interprofessional field. These represent the seven best papers of over 70 published in volume 29 of the Journal of Interprofessional Care.
Brief reflections
While it was agreed amongst the judges that the standard and quality of articles published in the Journal continues to improve, it was noted that there were a few areas which authors should pay attention to in constructing and presenting their interprofessional work:
-As we noted last year, there was relatively limited engagement with theory in the papers we considered this year. Once again, it was agreed that work could be improved if authors engaged more with the theoretical literature to develop their study and/or employ theories to explore/explain the nature of their empirical data.
-Again, while qualitative papers were generally better with using theory, a number of these papers could have been improved by paying more attention to quality issues (e.g. reflexivity, member checking, use of iteration) to provide a more informed understanding of the trustworthiness/credibility of their work.
– In addition to the standard phrase about securing formal ethical approval, it would be useful for authors to provide further information related to how issues of consent, confidentiality and anonymity were dealt with in their work.
Our involvement in the Baldwin Award was again an insightful process. We would like to congratulate the winning authors, runners-up and authors with honourable mentions on their excellent articles. We would also like to acknowledge all authors who publish their work in the Journal of Interprofessional Care for continuing to make the Journal such a vibrant and important medium of exchange and innovation in our field.
Scott Reeves, Joanne Goldman & John Toner
Baldwin Award Judges, Journal of Interprofessional Care