Interprofessional Curbside Consults to Develop Team Communication and Improve Student Achievement of Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Objective. To design and implement a series of activities focused on developing interprofessional communication skills and to assess the impact of the activities on students' attitudes and achievement of educational goals. Design. Prior to the first pharmacy practice skills laboratory session, pharmacy students listened to a classroom lecture about team communication and viewed short videos describing the roles, responsibilities, and usual work environments of four types of health care professionals. In each of four subsequent laboratory sessions, students interacted with a different standardized health care professional role-played by a pharmacy faculty member who asked them a medication-related question. Students responded in verbal and written formats. Assessment. Student performance was assessed with a three-part rubric. The impact of the exercise was assessed by conducting pre-and post-intervention surveys and analyzing students' performance on relevant Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) outcomes. Survey results showed improvement in student attitudes related to team-delivered care. Students' performance on the problem solver and collaborator CAPE outcomes improved, while performance on the educator outcome worsened. Conclusions. The addition of an interprofessional communication activity with standardized health care professionals provided the opportunity for students to develop skills related to team communication. Students felt the activity was valuable and realistic; however, analysis of outcome achievement from the exercise revealed a need for more exposure to team communication skills.

Implementation of interprofessional education in community setting

“…It is stated that IPE facilitates the students to improve interprofessional communication skills. 23 After the implementation of IPE, students gained a strong confidence in communication with other professions. 24 Furthermore, the participants stated that collaboration skill will increase by implementing the program.…”

Scoping Pharmacy Students’ Learning Outcomes: Where Do We Stand?

“…Additionally, different instruments were applied to collect information on students’ outcomes, such as skills checklists, in-depth interviews, agreement level on Likert scales for different constructs (i.e., tools on self-perceived knowledge, attitudes, communication, interprofessional practice, interdisciplinary education or confidence), or multiple-choice examinations. Contrary to what would be desirable, only some studies have applied pre- and post-surveys, and the number of studies enrolling multiple evaluations was also limited [5,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52]. On the one hand, all of these limitations compromise the accuracy and representativeness of the present study findings and conclusions; on the other hand, this clearly shows the need to improve the robustness of learning outcome evaluations in this area.…”

“…In some studies, a training/video session or a lecture was provided before the initial laboratory sessions, thus improving students’ prior knowledge. Active-learning strategies successively enhanced students’ self-confidence, identification of drug-related problems, patient management or communication skills [43,45,46,47]. The use of virtual reality and avatars is advancing [55] and has been tested in Portuguese pharmacy undergraduate programs with promising results [56].…”

“…Integrating more real practices and active-learning strategies in pharmacy schools may bring significant benefits, since they may have a direct impact on patients’ health. The provision of educational programs, integrated in real or active-learning practices should be considered; these programs are probably more beneficial if applied from the time of admission, and not towards the end [35,36,37,43,44,48]. The application of flipped and team-based models may be more useful than the traditional expositive models, such as lectures, despite the fact that implementation and outcomes require monitoring [5,48].…”

The Design of Interprofessional Performance Assessments in Undergraduate Healthcare & Social Work Education: A Scoping Review

“…Thirteen of these referred to (inter)national IP competency frameworks (see Table 3). Some publications reported a mix of different competency frameworks, for example Kirwin et al (2017) who used a combination of IP and profession specific competencies, namely the IPEC Core Competencies for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice and the Centre for Advancement of Pharmacy Education competencies. Thirteen publications described competency domains instead of a framework; for example, Garbee et al (2013) reported team performance, existing of communication, role clarity, and situational awareness as IP competency domains.…”