Effectiveness of an Interprofessional Education Event for Graduate Health Professional Students

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a single, optional, half-day, interprofessional education (IPE) event for a myriad of graduate-level health professional students (n=44) at a university in Illinois, USA. Methods: The researchers in this study examined students’ performance on two out of six of the domains on the Interprofessiomnal Collaborator Assessment Rubric (ICAR): Roles and Responsibilities and Communication Strategies. This study also investigated quantitative and qualitative findings related to student perceptions regarding this IPE opportunity. Results: Results indicated that students met or exceeded the minimum competency for the ranking of “developing” for all 6 of the behaviors evaluated. Results also revealed that this half-day extracurricuricular IPE event was viewed favorably by health-professional students and created a venue whereby students belonging to different health professional programs can enter into discussions and learn about each others’ respective roles and responsibilities in patient care. Conclusion: The creation and implementation of short term extracurricular IPE events may be a valuable alternative for healthcare programs that are unable to implement IPE activities due to some of the common barriers impacting the development, implementation, or continuation of IPE opportunities.

Effectiveness of Conducting Interprofessional Education Virtually among Pharmacy and Medical Students

“…Besides that, this IPE activity could have encouraged better understanding of professional roles in patient care as well as generate constructive mutual attitudes. The IPE activity was as effective as others done physically that other studies have reported on [32]. One of the reasons for the successful outcome might be that the patient case was designed in such a way that both disciplines had to use their knowledge and communication to solve it.…”