Abstract
ObjectivesInterprofessional education is important for increasing the quality of patient care, but organising it in primary healthcare is still challenging. The aim of this study was to develop and assess a virtual patient model for primary healthcare and to investigate students' perceptions of learning with this interprofessional virtual patient model.MethodsThe virtual patient case described a patient with several medical conditions who had returned home after surgery. The virtual patient included text files, short videos, and links to illustrate different health professions' roles in home care. Ten interprofessional groups with 39 students assessed the virtual patient from four different study programmes: nursing, physiotherapy, medicine, and occupational therapy. The students answered a questionnaire about how they perceived the usability of the virtual patient and participated in group interviews. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data from the semi-structured group interviews.ResultsThe analysis of the interviews resulted in four main categories: The virtual patient model facilitated the learning process; It was beneficial to have students from different programmes in the group when working with the virtual patient; Working with the virtual patient helped the students to understand the roles and competencies of their own and other professions and All professions are needed in clinical work in order to help the patient. The students perceived that the mixture of text and multimedia made the virtual patient seem authentic and stimulated their group discussions, which they valued most. The students gave generally high points for usability in the questionnaire, but they also gave input for improvement of the program in their comments.ConclusionsThe interprofessional virtual patient model facilitated interactions and discussions between students and may be a useful complement for interprofessional education in clinical contexts and might be a suitable tool in preparing students for future teamwork.
Highlights
There is currently a need for greater interprofessional collaboration in all healthcare sectors, but this is especially the case in primary healthcare due to the multiple and complex demands of ageing populations with chronic diseases [1, 2]
We have found only one study that assessed a virtual patients (VPs), that was aimed to be used by three different health professions [18], and we have not found any studies aimed at assessing the impact on students’ learning of a VP created for interprofessional education (IPE) for students in a primary healthcare context
In this study we developed and assessed a VP model for interprofessional learning in primary healthcare
Summary
There is currently a need for greater interprofessional collaboration in all healthcare sectors, but this is especially the case in primary healthcare due to the multiple and complex demands of ageing populations with chronic diseases [1, 2]. All healthcare students need to learn to collaborate with other professions in order to be prepared to meet patients with all kind of needs. IPE occurs “when students from two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaborative practice and the quality of care” [5]. Thistletwaite [6] states that the prepositions “with, from and about” are central in interprofessional learning, and this means that all three prepositions must be applied in pedagogical practice when bringing different professional groups of students together in the same educational setting. To gain knowledge about other health professions, the students need to interact with each other across professional boundaries during their educational programmes
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