Using gaming to prepare health professional students to practice systems thinking

Abstract

Background: Healthcare professionals face numerous challenges regarding the delivery of care. Creating solutions to these challenges is imperative to improve the quality and safety of care to positively impact patient outcomes. However, health professional students rarely receive formal training regarding systems thinking during didactic components of their professional training. Aims, Materials, and Methods: Thus, our institution incorporated the Friday Night at the ER (FNER) activity in the interprofessional education curricula to provide an experiential learning experience focused on systems thinking. Results: A total of 1033 students (483 nursing, 289 pharmacy, 48 nutrition, 26 speech–language pathology, and 187 preferred not to share their discipline or complete the survey) participated in FNER across six separate semester cohorts. The Systems Thinking Scale was completed immediately before and after FNER by 81.5% (pre) and 80.3% (post) of students. Repeated measures ANOVA was conducted and noted combined nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, and speech–language pathology students' total Systems Thinking Scale scores increased significantly from pretest (M = 82.8, SD = 10.6) to posttest (M = 89.7, SD = 10.8), p < 0.001. Discussion: Our experience indicates this is a meaningful interprofessional activity that prepares students to practice systems thinking in their future careers. Conclusion: Practicing these skills has the potential to improve learners' ability to implement changes that will positively impact healthcare systems.