Leveraging Technology to Facilitate Interprofessional Education Activities

Abstract

PURPOSE : Interprofessional education (IPE) of health science students is crucial to the development of clinicians with the requisite skills to succeed in the healthcare workforce. The updated ARC-PA 5th edition Standards for Physician Assistant Education continue the emphasis on IPE; however, the ability to successfully implement IPE learning remains a challenge, with rigid curriculum, competing schedules, and limited facility resources being the most frequently cited barriers. This quality improvement project attempted to develop an IPE activity that attenuated the impact of the above challenges by utilizing a large-scale asynchronous simulation. METHODS: A convenience sample of faculty gathered to develop an innovative approach to IPE implementation. Faculty developed learning objectives based on Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies emphasizing roles/responsibilities and communication, both written and verbal. Utilizing a patient case, faculty developed an activity meeting the curricular and scheduling needs of their respective programs. The activities occurred over one term. At the conclusion of the term, students participated in a large-scale debrief session utilizing Zoom®. During the debriefing, students were divided into breakout groups with representatives of each program. After completion, a survey with 6 positively worded items using a 4-point Likert scale was administered to participants evaluating their learning and the effectiveness of the asynchronous modality. RESULTS: Eight of ten health profession degree programs participated. The final debrief session had 202 student participants with 184 survey respondents (91.1% response rate) and 24 PA students with 22 respondents (91.6% response rate). PA student respondents rated the IPE activity highly with all items demonstrating at least 90.9% agreement (range 90.9 – 95.5%). This was consistent with the overall respondents’ opinions (range 91.8 - 96.2%). DISCUSSION: As evidenced by student feedback, the large-scale asynchronous IPE simulation was effective in meeting its learning objectives. This method of IPE allows the faculty to develop activities that meet program-specific curricular needs, while also addressing IPE competencies. The asynchronous components may have slightly lessened the ability of the activity to emphasize IPE competencies, as this received the lowest rates on survey results, and this will be followed up in future student feedback. Meeting via Zoom® reduced the need to find facilities space for greater than 200 students and faculty, while also leveraging technology to facilitate breakout groups. Faculty felt the asynchronous modality attenuated the barriers in scheduling and curricular restraints but will formally assess via faculty surveys in future versions of this program.