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ABSTRACT
Interprofessional education (IPE) involving an interactive and longitudinal clinic experience at an inner-city charitable clinic from September to May 2013/2014 was evaluated. Pre-, mid-, and post-intervention data were collected from students in 13 different professions including medicine (medical and physician assistant), dentistry (dental and dental hygiene), nursing (undergraduate and clinical nurse specialist), public health, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nutritional sciences, speech and language pathology, and social work. To evaluate their interprofessional attitudes, students completed the TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ) and Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). They also completed a unique measure, healthcare professionals circles diagrams (HPCDs), that indicated student conceptualisation of a healthcare team caring for a complex patient, along with perception of their team’s progress towards meeting patient goals. Results from the T-TAQ and RIPLS scores indicated small but significant increases from pre- to post-intervention (p = 0.005 and 0.012, respectively). Analysis of the HPCDs revealed significant increases in students’ perceptions of the types of interprofessional team members, relationships, and communication between professions to provide medical care to patients (p < 0.01). Most HPCDs included pharmacists, nurses, and physicians as part of the care team at all time points. Students significantly increased their inclusion of dentistry, public health, social work, and physician assistants as members of the healthcare team from pre- to post-intervention. Implications of our data indicated the importance of IPE interventions that include not only classroom-based sessions, but actual patient care experiences within interprofessional teams. It also reinforced the importance of new and unique methods to assess IPE.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Peggy Wisdom for her passion, vision, and foresight to spur innovative interprofessional education at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. We wish to thank TooToo Cirlot, Michelle Wallace, Kim Jackson, Rose Yandell, and Wendi Ainsworth for their help in implementation, data collection, and management of this project.
EPIC Faculty at the University of Oklahoma: Mark L. Britton, College of Pharmacy; Vincent C. Dennis, College of Pharmacy; Nancy Letassy, College of Pharmacy; John Dmytryk, College of Dentistry; Randy Jones, College of Dentistry; Martha Ferretti, College of Allied Health; Carole Johnson, College of Allied Health; Christi Barbee, College of Allied Health; Denise Bender, College of Allied Health; Terrie Fritz, Ann and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work; Christina R. Miller, Ann and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work; Lin Goldston, College of Public Health; Sharyl Kinney, College of Public Health; Gary Loving, College of Nursing; Melissa Craft, College of Nursing; Jeana Wilcox, College of Nursing; Laura Reinhardt, College of Medicine; Daniel L. McNeill, College of Medicine; Peggy J. Wisdom, College of Medicine.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.
Funding
The authors wish to thank the Wisdom Family Foundation for their funding of all aspects of this study, including implementation of the project, conduct of the study, data collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data.