Nursing and medical students teaming up: Results of an interprofessional project

Abstract

Health professions programmes are increasing the number of interprofessional events in their curricula. Many of these programmes are grounded in case study or simulation events in order to prepare students for eventual practice. We designed an interprofessional education collaborative practice (IPECP) that provides direct interprofessional practice experience while students are still in their health profession programmes. In our programme, teams of senior baccalaureate nursing and third-year medical students provided health coaching to patients in need of chronic disease management. The purpose of the project and study was to determine whether repeated exposure to opportunities for interprofessional communication would lead to improvement in the individual and team communication skills. Teams met with their assigned patients monthly to provide coaching and had follow-up conversations with the patients between meetings. Faculty were present at each meeting to review the healthcare and coaching plans, observe the teams' interactions, and provide a debriefing after each meeting. Results demonstrated that both individual and team communication skills significantly increased over time. The IPECP project was successful in providing a context where students could develop and improve upon key interprofessional communication skills.

Interprofessional Communication (IPC) for Medical Students: A Scoping Review

“…Student evaluations were carried out by faculty members (18,84,86,101,121,123), and supplemented by feedback from simulated patients (26,80,84), and team building exercises (80). A post-training analysis of verbal units of exchange during handoffs also served to quantify improvements in communication skills (121).…”

“…Once again only the Mayo High Performance Teamwork Scale 26 At the apex of the pyramid, the "Does" level focuses on the students' independent performance in real clinical settings. IPC training was facilitated via experiential learning in clinics (27,75,94,104,107,120,127) and wards (27,104,107,109), student-led clinics (106,(112)(113)(114), motivational interviews with certi ed health educationalists (84) and home visits (102,115,128). These interactions provide opportunities for students to share disciplinary insights and expertise, conduct collaborative medical interviews, explore complex patient cases and manage challenging situations as a uni ed group (102,115).…”

“…Whilst students provided self-reports of their competency levels in clinical settings via questionnaires (79,103,113), faculty members (84) and patients (91,94) were also involved in the observation and identi cation of good communication skills. Few tools were validated (84,113) such as the University of West England Interprofessional Questionnaire (113), and the Indiana University Individual Communication Rubric and Indiana University Team Communication Rubric which were modi cations of the validated Indiana University Simulation Integration Rubric (84).…”

Interprofessional Communication (IPC) for Medical Students: A Scoping Review

“…Results reflected a transfer of IPC training skills to clinical practice (58,67,71). Feedback from simulation assessments illustrated improvement of communication skills (103) and positive results in IPC and team building(67).…”

“…Assessment of students' communication skills was carried out by faculty members (64,71,73,85,103,106) and simulated patients (58,67,71), supplemented with feedback from simulated patients during IPC and team building exercises (67). A post-training analysis of verbal units of exchange during handoffs quantified improvements in communication skills (103).…”