The Benefits and Challenges of Interprofessional Education Assessment for Health Care Professionals

Abstract

Interprofessional education (IPE) fosters effective team-based collaborative practice among members of different health care professions to advance high-quality and safe patient care. Although the importance of IPE has been recognized and IPE initiatives have expanded rapidly in the past decades, substantial difficulties in IPE assessment still exist. At present, a lack of consensus on the optimal approach to IPE assessment contributes to uncertainty about the level of attainment of collaborative team performance. This paper aims to provide an overview of the benefits and current challenges associated with IPE assessment. Furthermore, a multifactor model with an assessment matrix and assessment blueprints from a recent study is briefly discussed. We also provide examples of assessment blueprints for the team management of stroke patient discharge covering a competency examination at the levels of individuals, the team, and the task.

Design guidelines for assessing students’ interprofessional competencies in healthcare education: a consensus study

“…Concerning IP tasks, the proposed guidelines align with previous studies, e.g., the authenticity of the assessment tasks [ 23 – 26 ], the importance of transparency in describing the purpose of the assessment and the criteria applied to students [ 8 , 27 , 28 ], and the identification of IP competencies on which the assessment task is based [ 12 , 14 ]. Regarding assessors, the guidelines generated state that the assessors should be aware of the assessment content and process and trained in the use of the assessment procedure, which is confirmed by several other publications [ 5 , 9 , 12 ]. The guideline regarding the facilitation of assessors to evaluate a student from a different profession is relatively new in IP assessment literature since it is often the case that educational institutions require students to be assessed by teachers within their profession [ 9 , 14 ].…”

“…These behaviors do not lead to the objective of the assessment: IP collaborative learning. This study shows that it is necessary to transform assessment from an individual-based approach to an IP approach in health professions education [ 9 , 12 ]. It seems crucial to develop new techniques focusing on the IP performance of individuals and the whole IP team [ 5 , 14 ].…”

“…An IP assessment task is an educational task in which students from two or more educational programs show their IP competence, such as simulation-based tasks and case-based discussions [ 10 ]. The IP tasks vary in quality, focus, and theoretical underpinning [ 9 , 12 , 13 ] and as a result, there is little consensus regarding an “end-level” of IPE, stating when students are collaboration-ready. Second, an IP assessor is responsible for assessing, examining, and/or grading students’ IP performance.…”

“…A specific difficulty regarding the IP assessment procedure is the feasibility of assessment. Often hundreds of learners are to be assessed and realistic methods that address the diversity of tasks, the assessors, and assessment formats must be considered [ 12 ].…”

“…In the IP assessment literature, the current discussion revolves around whether to assess individual students, the IP team, or both. We see that assessment of individual competencies is currently dominant in healthcare education [ 12 ]. Assessment of an IP team can be challenging.…”