Development of a Novel Interprofessional Education Activity with Undergraduate Students: Design, Assessment, and Lessons Learned

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Interprofessional education (IPE) is essential for students in healthcare disciplines to learn skills necessary for collaborative patient care. While IPE is an essential component of health professional training, implementation is challenging. Faculty members from pharmacy, nursing, exercise physiology, and medical laboratory science at a rural, private university developed an IPE activity with the goal of exposing students to interprofessional care. The process of IPE activity development will also be described. METHODS Using a pretest/posttest method, data were collected from two student cohorts (n=411) from four disciplines using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). Students worked multidisciplinary teams (n=66) to assess patient cases and design a treatment plan. Responses were evaluated using a common rubric. Student feedback on the activity was also gathered after the activity. RESULTS Students were positively influenced by the exercise. Ten items on the RIPLS had statistically significant differences between pretest and posttest. Students (90.5%) identified the activity improved their understanding of other healthcare disciplines and roles, and 89.7% agreed the activity made them more aware of cultural competency. Common themes of gaining appreciation of teamwork, collaboration to improve patient care, and learning across disciplines emerged from student feedback. Student performance was consistent with academic progression. CONCLUSION IPE activities improved student readiness for interprofessional learning, produced case responses reflective of interprofessional collaboration, and were viewed positively by students. Faculty were able to identify solutions to challenges identified during project implementation providing support for future activities and a template for others developing IPE activities. Received: 01/12/2016 Accepted: 02/26/2016 © 2016 Musser et al. This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. H IP & Development of a Novel Interprofessional Education Activity with Undergraduate Students ORIGINAL THEORY & RESEARCH 2(4):eP1096 | 2 Introduction The health care game is changing. Is your team ready? Competent health professionals are required to work together in complex and dynamic healthcare environments and to collaborate in teams (Hood, Cant, Baulch, Gilbee, Leech, Anderson, & Davies, 2014). Each team member must have clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each discipline and have an understanding of how each team member contributes to patient care (Gillen, Arora, Sanderson, & Turner, 2013). To assist students in developing this understanding, many universities and health care programs have incorporated interprofessional education (IPE) activities into their curriculum. IPE occurs when two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes (World Health Organization, 2010). For many, effective collaboration is a learned skill. Members of the healthcare team must practice this skill just as a baseball player practices batting or a basketball team practices offense. While some find this difficult, time consuming, and even counterproductive, practice makes perfect. For undergraduate students to be practice-ready upon graduation, they need knowledge about the principles of good teamwork, to have experienced interprofessional collaboration, and to have been part of a well-functioning health care team (McKinlay, Pullon, & Murdoch, 2014). Exposing future healthcare professionals to IPE at the undergraduate level allows students to develop, practice, and perfect their collaborative skills within a safe and supportive learning environment. At a private, rural Midwestern university, an interdisciplinary team of faculty from pharmacy, nursing, exercise physiology, and medical laboratory science (MLS) worked together to develop and implement activities for students to work collaboratively through cultural healthcare cases. Goals for the activities included exposing students to other healthcare disciplines, improving curricular connectivity, and practicing communication and decision making within teams. The IPE activity was assessed to determine 1) students’ readiness for IPE before and after the exercise using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS); 2) student perceptions about the activity; 3) students’ performance on the case. Provided as a template for IPE developers, this article also discusses activity design and lessons learned during the implementation process.