Improving health professions students’ understanding of interprofessional roles through participation in a patient stabilization simulation

Abstract

Objective. To teach interprofessional communication and teamwork skills to health professions students through a standardized patient simulation on acute patient stabilization and measure the impact on learners’ perceptions of interprofessional collaboration. Methods. Medical and pharmacy students in their final year and post-licensure nurses in their initial six-month probationary period worked together to stabilize a simulated acutely ill standardized patient. Perceptions of IPE were assessed pre-and post-simulation using the Student Perceptions of Interpro-fessional Clinical Education-Revised Instrument, version 2 (SPICE-R2). Medical student participants’ scores were compared to those of a concurrently enrolled cohort of medical students who did not participate in the simulation. Results. Eighty learners participated in the simulation and all completed pre and post SPICE-R2 assessments. Learners’ perceptions increased significantly in all domains, including understanding of roles in collaborative practice, interprofessional teamwork and team-based practice, and patient outcomes from collaborative practice. Compared to the control cohort, participants’ perceptions of team-based practice and the impact on patient outcomes improved significantly, while a statistically similar improvement in scores for understanding of roles and responsibilities was seen. The SPICE-R2 scores increased similarly among students in each profession. Repeat exposure to the simulation con-tinued to improve perceptions but not as robustly as the initial simulation. Conclusion. This simulation changed learners’ perceptions of how interprofessional collaboration affects patient care, which supports the incorporation of standardized patient-based interprofessional education even in the late-stage education of health professionals.