Paid co-op models for health professional programs: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Clinical learning is key for health professional students. As we face, worldwide, an aging healthcare workforce and widespread staff shortages, the urgency to adopt innovative and scalable models of clinical education has never been greater. These new approaches are essential not only to address the current capacity challenges but also to ensure the sustainability and quality of care, particularly as healthcare needs become more complex and patient populations continue to grow. Co-operative education (co-op) programs provide students with the opportunity to gain practical experiences in a clinical setting as part of their formal education while receiving some financial remuneration. Yet, little is known about the most effective ways to design, implement and evaluate these programs to best benefit patients, students, educational, and healthcare organizations. Our goal was to explore the available literature on paid co-op education models for students in health professional programs.

Methods: We conducted a scoping review following the six stages of the Arskey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework and the PRISMA-ScR reporting format. This included defining the research question, developing the search strategy, conducting a two-step screening process, and performing data extraction and analysis of the included studies.

Results: A total of 30 articles were included. Studies were from the United States (n = 14), the United Kingdom (n = 8), Canada (n = 4), Ireland (n = 2), New Zealand (n = 1) and Iran (n = 1). Most studies aimed to describe or evaluate the paid co-op programs (n = 12), or aimed to explore the experience of students, preceptors or faculty members who participated in a co-op program (n = 10). The studies included a wide range of healthcare professionals, including nursing (n = 21), pharmacy (n = 3), midwifery (n = 1), medicine (n = 1), occupational therapy (n = 1), audiology (n = 1), social work (n = 1), and a combination of occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and speech-language pathology (n = 1).

Conclusions: The results of this scoping review contributed to the existing literature on paid co-op education programs for students in health professional programs. We explored the current state of these programs, the benefits and the challenges of these programs, and the potential directions for future planning, implementation, and research in this area. Health care leaders, program directors, clinical educators, and curriculum developers will be able to use these findings to inform future co-op programs that fosters mutual benefits for students, educational, and healthcare organizations.