Abstract
Interprofessional education (IPE) typically involves clinical simulation exercises with students from medical and nursing schools. Yet, healthcare requires patient-centered teams that include diverse disciplines. Students from public health and informatics are rarely incorporated into IPE, signaling a gap in current educational practices. In this study, we integrated students from administrative and non-clinical disciplines into traditional clinical simulations and measured the effect on communication and teamwork. From July 2017–July 2018, 408 students from five schools (medicine, nursing, dentistry, public health, and informatics) participated in one of eight three-hour IPE clinical simulations with Standardized Patients and electronic health record technologies. Data were gathered using a pre-test–post-test interventional Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Survey (ICCAS) and through qualitative evaluations from Standardized Patients. Of the total 408 students, 386 (94.6%) had matched pre- and post-test results from the surveys. There was a 15.9% improvement in collaboration overall between the pre- and post-tests. ICCAS competencies showed improvements in teamwork, communication, collaboration, and conflict management, with an average change from 5.26 to 6.10 (t = 35.16; p < 0.001). We found by creating new clinical simulations with additional roles for non-clinical professionals, student learners were able to observe and learn interprofessional teamwork from each other and from faculty role models.
Highlights
Academic research examining interprofessional education (IPE) has primarily centered around the clinical aspects of healthcare, and including students from nursing and medicine [1,2]
By integrating students who specialize in informatics and health technologies, clinical students have the opportunity to learn about electronic health records (EHR); and informatics students are afforded the opportunity to see the full spectrum of patient-centered care and usability of health information technology
The objective of this study was to evaluate the change in pre- versus post- collaboration scores for students who participated in an Interprofessional education (IPE) simulation involving nursing, medicine, dentistry, public health, and informatics
Summary
Academic research examining interprofessional education (IPE) has primarily centered around the clinical aspects of healthcare, and including students from nursing and medicine [1,2]. Since healthcare is transitioning to patient-centered team-based care [3], there is a critical gap that students from allied and public health disciplines (such as healthcare and management or informatics) are rarely incorporated into IPE simulation exercises. Students in public and allied health fields are uniquely trained to provide information on different aspects of care (such as community programs, payment systems, and population health). IPE affords students from diverse healthcare backgrounds the opportunity to learn from each other in an interactive peer environment, which is superior when compared to an online only or lecture-based environment [4]. A structured, interprofessional setting which allows diverse students to learn together has been shown to improve the climate and capacity for teamwork [5,6]
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