Collaborative Action: Piloting a Process to Develop New Patient Cases for Interprofessional Team Training in Partnership with Student Scholars
Background:
Social and behavioral factors intersect with chronic health challenges, which are increasingly complex and multifactorial. Addressing these challenges requires interprofessional collaborations. Creative approaches are needed to prepare students for the realities of practice. Activities should be designed to prepare future healthcare providers, support development of competencies that cultivate ethical relationships, shared values, team building, professional interactions, and understanding of roles and responsibilities. Training programs need to support communication, strategy building, and broaden interprofessional clinical practice approaches. Our aim was to develop and pilot a case study for interprofessional team training that can be delivered via Zoom.
Methods:
Medical student scholars developed and pilot tested a case-based care planning simulation. Working with an interprofessional panel of faculty, they adopted the Social Determinants of Health and Stages of Change models to create and evaluate a complex health case involving a young adult with ADHD.
Six steps for case development were utilized:
1. Character Development: Students identified the clinical problem and created character parameters
2. Literature Review: Current research was sourced to create case materials for students and preceptors, to support evidence-based problem solving amongst participating students
3. Subject Matter Expert Review: Clinical experts from nursing, public health, pharmacy, respiratory therapy reviewed case components, providing feedback to guide case revision
4. Script Development: The patient story was scripted in collaboration with clinical faculty and filmed using a standardized patient.
5. Simulation Guide Development: Student and preceptor guides were developed to facilitate simulation preparation, interaction, critical thinking, and problem solving.
6. Pilot Testing: A quality survey was administered to students following a pilot implementation of the simulation case, integrating the ICCAS tool and qualitative feedback.
Results:
During Spring of 2022, our case study was piloted by 45 learners from 9 professions. Evaluations revealed that students enjoyed the online experience and felt that it positively added to their education. There was a significant increase in interprofessional communication after the simulated patient cases and interactive session (n = 42, P<.001).
Conclusions:
Student-faculty partnerships support expansion of interprofessional patient cases for health professions education. These collaborative relationships provide valuable experience for students and produced engaging evidence-based learning resources. These synergistic relationships are poised to foster ongoing creative thinking aimed towards high quality education experiences to solve health challenges in the future.
Reflections:
Advantages of providing online interprofessional team training include reduction in cost and travel time, flexibility in scheduling, and the opportunity to include more professions.
