Attitudes of Undergraduate Public Health and Health Science Students towards Interprofessional Education (IPE) at a California University

Introduction: The study revealed that many healthcare professional students begin their academic studies with positive and high expectations towards interprofessional collaborative studies. Unfortunately, students lose interest if their initial expectations are not met with consistent opportunities to enhance their communication skills and better understand the different healthcare professions. The study aimed to explore health science and public health students’ attitudes toward IPE. The participants’ backgrounds and demographics were used as the variations for the study. Methods: A pre-post semi-quantitative anonymous survey was designed to assess health science and public health undergraduate students’ attitudes toward IPE. The reason for this design was to capture the participants’ attitudes toward IPE at the start of a semester when they had no academic exposure to IPE. Qualtrics was used to collect the research data. A valid and reliable scale was used to measure attitudes toward IPE. A post-survey was included to measure the participants’ change in attitude toward IPE during the semester. The goal was to measure the IPE curriculum effectiveness. There were 21 survey questions. The questions were divided into four validated subscales. The first seven questions (Questions 1 - 7) pertained to the participants’ demographics s, such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, major field of study, and prior education. Questions 8, 9, 16, & 20 were designed to determine how the participants perceived their roles and responsibilities in their future healthcare careers. Each IPE attitude question’s central tendency and demographic variations were measured. The correlation between demographics and IPE attitudes was measured. Results: The pre-survey had 192 participants, and the post-survey had 97 participants. The pre-survey had 87% of participants in the age group 17 - 25 years, while the post-survey had 82.5% in the same age group. Only 5.7% of the participants were 36 years or older in the pre-survey and 9.3% in the post-survey. The participants were 80.70% female in the pre-survey and 85.6% in the post-survey. The largest healthcare career field concentration was nursing, with 42.7% and 45.4% in the pre- and post-surveys. The other three larger career fields were healthcare administration, community health education, and physician assistant. The participants’ attitudes toward learning with different healthcare career students and becoming more effective members of a healthcare team increased from 4.36 (SD = 0.13) to 4.40 (SD = 0.17). Two negative IPE attitude questions showed an increased value: 1) The function of nursing therapists is mainly to provide support for doctors (3.51, SD = 0.19 to 3.12, SD = 0.24, p-value ≤ 0.004) and 2) Clinical and healthcare problem-solving skills could only be learned with students from the same career field (3.73, SD = 0.13 to 3.31, SD = 0.24, p-value ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: Interprofessional Education in an academic setting is essential to help healthcare students prepare and succeed in their future healthcare careers. The study results show that health science and public health students understand IPE and value academic exposure to the IPE process during their studies. Academic healthcare programs should continue integrating the IPE learning model and content throughout the student’s academic journey. The variations in IPE attitude do not significantly vary based on demographics and healthcare career fields. This study only represents a sample size of the many healthcare careers. Interprofessional communication and collaboration are essential to the future healthcare delivery challenges we face. For this reason, IPE should be integrated into healthcare education for all health science and public health students. It is recommended that more research should be done on creative curriculum design to get students more engaged in various healthcare IPE learning activities.

Interprofessional Clinical Simulation-Based Education to Develop Professional Identity and Professionalism in Japanese Medical and Nursing Students

Introduction: We conducted a multi-occupational team simulation training for medical and nursing students and clarified how professional identity and professionalism attitudes change with interprofessional education (IPE). Methods: Thirty-nine 4th-year medical students and 48 2nd-year nursing students were enrolled and distributed to the educational intervention group and the control group. We used a vocation identity scale including lower four subscales, a scale for professionalism including lower five subscales, a readiness for inter-professional learning scale (RIPLS), and an interdisciplinary education perception scale (IEPS). Results: Among the medical students, IPE using an advanced patient simulator improved the scores on the vocational identity scale, scale for professionalism, RIPLS, and IEPS. Among the nursing students, IPE improved the scores on the vocational identity scale, scale for professionalism, RIPLS, and IEPS. Conclusion: On-the-job training using simulated clinical training by a multi-occupational team improved vocational identification and professionalism.

Using an Interprofessional Lens to Analyze Serious Adverse Events in a Teaching Hospital: An Analysis with the TeamSTEPPS® Framework

This paper explores the contribution of teamwork skills in serious adverse events, using the TeamSTEPPS® framework. Adverse events are the undesirable events that are not due to the natural course of a disease;they are considered serious when they prolong a hospital stay, lead to a physical disability or to death. Failures in teamwork, particularly with interprofessional teams, can lead to potential risks to patient safety. Using a dataset of de-identified reports of serious adverse events in 2016 in a tertiary teaching hospital, we explored the contribution of teamwork skills according to the TeamSTEPPS® framework to these adverse events. We found that 61% of the 41 analyzed events involved failures in teamwork skills, with 80% of these involving communication, 52% in situation monitoring and team structure, 44% in mutual support and 40% in leadership. Sixty-four percent of the events involved more than one teamwork component. Our findings emphasize the need to improve teamwork training in healthcare, focusing not only on communication, but also on other teamwork skills as they often contribute together in adverse events. Future analyses of serious adverse events should include a focus on teamwork competencies, to guide the development of future quality and safety training programs.

Consensus views on competencies and teaching methods for an interprofessional curriculum on complementary and integrative medicine:A Delphi study

Objective:A collaborative team is necessary to help patients achieve their healthcare goals using complementary medicine.At present,healthcare professionals do not feel sufficiently qualified to provide this service.This study sought to identify competencies and teaching methods for interprofessional training on complementary and integrative medicine at medical schools.Methods:Sixty-five German-speaking experts with various professional backgrounds were invited to take part in a three-round Delphi study.In the first round,predefined competencies were assessed on a seven-point Likert scale,and participants were invited to propose additional competencies that would be evaluated in the subsequent rounds.The competencies were ranked based on the participant assessments and were assigned to four relevance groups.In the second and third rounds,suitable teaching methods were identified using free-text fields and multiple-choice questions.In a final workshop,participants synthesized the outcomes of the previous sessions and derived key competencies that would be a benefit to undergraduate interprofessional training in complementary and integrative medicine at medical schools.Results:The three rounds plus final worksop were attended by 50,40,36 and 11 experts.The competencies that these experts determined to be highly relevant to teaching complementary and integrative medicine emphasized,in particular,the respectful treatment of patients and the importance of taking a medical history.From these highly relevant competencies,three key targets were agreed upon in the final workshop:students are able to 1)classify and assess complementary medical terms and methods;2)work collaboratively and integrate patients into the interprofessional team;3)involve patients and their relatives respectfully and empathetically in all healthcare processes.To achieve these competency goals,the following teaching methods were highlighted:students discuss therapy options based on authentic patient cases with each other and practice empathic patient communication incorporating complementary medicine.Further,the theoretical background of complementary medicines could be provided as online-training,to use the class sessions for hands-on exercises and interprofessional exchange and discussion.Conclusion:Despite the heterogeneous panel of experts,a consensus was reached on the competency orientation and teaching approaches.The results can promote the implementation of interprofessional training for complementary medicine in undergraduate education.