An Inter-institutional approach to creating an interprofessional (IPE) education standardized patient encounter

Nadia Ismail, MD, MPH, MEdElizabeth Nelson, MD

Needs: Why was this curriculum developed?

• ED 19 A: The core curriculum of a medical education program must prepare medical students to function collaboratively on health care teams that include other health professionals. Members of the health care teams from other health professions may be either students or practitioners.

Needs: Background

• Many IPE experiences focus solely on role recognition and identities

• Most medical schools are part of a larger health science center and have pool of interdisciplinary students

• For BCM to build such a team, novel approach necessary to collaborate and integrate curricula across disciplines

Background

• Under leadership of Dr. Beth Nelson, BCM forged new relationships with UH College of Pharmacy and TWU College of Nursing

• IPE Standardized Patient Encounter with senior medical students, nursing and pharmacy students was developed

Program Goals

• Recognize the individual expertise each profession brings to patient care delivery

• Demonstrate respect and trust for inter-professional team members

• Broaden their repertoire of effective communication skills with their team and patients’ families.

IPE Exercise

• Part I: Icebreaker• Part II: Planning• Part III: Disclosure• Part IV: Debriefing

Methods

• Development of non-linear algorithm to standardize emotional responses

• Development of checklist to assess communication within the team and with family member

• Development of facilitator guide for debriefing

Results

Discussion/Conclusions:

• Team cohesion, comfort with discussing emotion, and use of a variety of communication strategies promotes empathetic exchanges with patients and family members.

Conclusions

• SP observations reveal desirable and undesirable communication strategies, as well as trigger student reflection about their team’s approach.

• Our simulated experience serves as an effective foundation for discussion about the importance of effective interdisciplinary team work.

• Leaders help multidisciplinary students identify with one another and become more comfortable in discussing patient care and errors with members of other disciplines.

Discussion/reflection/lessons learned

• Challenges: institutional buy-in, financial support of activities and coordination of different academic calendars.

• Another challenge is in creating an active encounter during which all disciplines can showcase their education and skill set in an equal way.

Rewards

• Interdisciplinary debriefing with reflection where communication skills are honed

• Debriefing led by all three disciplines is in itself an IPE experience

• Development of a facilitator debriefing guide• Use of a complex nonlinear algorithm to train

SPs

Acknowledgments

• BCM team: Dr. Elizabeth Nelson, Dr. Cayla Teal, Dr. Anne Gill and Ms.Linda Stelljes, UME

• UH College of Pharmacy: Dr. Catherine Hatfield and Dr. Nancy Ordonez

• TWU College of Nursing: Dr. Rita DelloStritto and Dr. Peggy Landrum