Interprofessional Emergency Training Leads to Changes in the Workplace

Abstract

IntroductionPreventable mistakes occur frequently and can lead to patient harm and death. The emergency department (ED) is notoriously prone to such errors, and evidence suggests that improving teamwork is a key aspect to reduce the rate of error in acute care settings. Only a few strategies are in place to train team skills and communication in interprofessional situations. Our goal was to conceptualize, implement, and evaluate a training module for students of three professions involved in emergency care. The objective was to sensitize participants to barriers for their team skills and communication across professional borders.MethodsWe developed a longitudinal simulation-enhanced training format for interprofessional teams, consisting of final-year medical students, advanced trainees of emergency nursing and student paramedics. The training format consisted of several one-day training modules, which took place twice in 2016 and 2017. Each training module started with an introduction to share one’s roles, professional self-concepts, common misconceptions, and communication barriers. Next, we conducted different simulated cases. Each case consisted of a prehospital section (for paramedics and medical students), a handover (everyone), and an ED section (medical students and emergency nurses). After each training module, we assessed participants’ “Commitment to Change.” In this questionnaire, students were anonymously asked to state up to three changes that they wished to implement as a result of the course, as well as the strength of their commitment to these changes.ResultsIn total, 64 of 80 participants (80.0%) made at least one commitment to change after participating in the training modules. The total of 123 commitments was evenly distributed over four emerging categories: communication, behavior, knowledge and attitude. Roughly one third of behavior- and attitude-related commitments were directly related to interprofessional topics (e.g., “acknowledge other professions’ work”), and these were equally distributed among professions. At the two-month follow-up, 32 participants (50%) provided written feedback on their original commitments: 57 of 62 (91.9%) commitments were at least partly realized at the follow-up, and only five (8.1%) commitments lacked realization entirely.ConclusionA structured simulation-enhanced intervention was successful in promoting change to the practice of emergency care, while training teamwork and communication skills jointly.

Interprofessional education program for medical and nursing students: interprofessional versus uniprofessional

“…This improvement is not surprising, considering previous studies showed improved outcomes after IPE, regardless of profession and learning method [3][4][5][6][7].…”

“…Existing studies have shown improvements in IP perception and clinical reasoning skills in a student-run free clinic, and a positive effect on students' mutual appreciation in problem-based learning [3,4]. In simulation-based training, IP students gained enhanced understanding of other professionals' work, communication, teamwork and leadership, and self-efficacy as better team leaders [5][6][7]. IPE has also been shown to enhance the development of interprofessional thinking and patient-centered care, acquiring shared knowledge, and promoting mutual understanding [8][9][10].…”

<p>Non-Medical Radiography Staff Experiences in Inter-Professional Communication: A Swedish Qualitative Focus Group Interview Study</p>

“…This finding supports previous studies, indicating that inter-professional collaboration and relationships, as well as communication skills and strategy, are essential to adequate health outcomes and patient safety. 21,22 However, a limitation is that the results must be interpreted in relation to context. The fact that qualitative findings are contextual does not mean they have no meaning in other contexts, but must be related to the new context when findings are transferred.…”

Hospital Climate and Peer Report Intention on Adverse Medical Events: Role of Attribution and Rewards

“…The robust findings and conclusions in this study should be tested using more subcategories and specific scenarios. On the one hand, health professionals in this study came from hospitals in the Yangtze River Delta region of China, and other scholars have explored the possibility of teamwork in reducing the error rate of emergency care who used European data [ 56 ]. Therefore, future research can be to study the role of organizational climate in reducing AMEs in other regions and countries which can enhance the reliability of the results.…”