Interprofessional Education (IPE) Case Day Experience Illustrating the Continuum of Care
Purpose: The purpose of this platform presentation is to describe an interprofessional event involving 10 professions following a patient through the continuum of care using distance learning technology. It also highlights the difficulties of evaluating the effectiveness of such an event.
Description: The IPE Case Day Experience was a collaborative effort to illustrate the continuum of care from a patient perspective. Students observed the interaction of healthcare providers taking a patient through the continuum of care. Selected students played the role of the health professional. The consistent patient highlighted the multiple personnel often encountered after a traumatic injury. The scenes played out in a theater and began with the initial injury on the field and ended with a return to school. Professionals encountered included the athletic trainer, EMS, physician, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, registered nurse, physical therapist (PT), PTA, occupational therapist (OT), OTA, and speech pathologist. A large screen projection provided “close-up” views. Dynamic student interactions were facilitated through questions delivered through real-time polling using ©VoxVote (https://www.voxvote.com/). The questions prompted discussions within the interprofessional groups. For the second year of the event, the event was delivered via Zoom to another campus 250 miles away. The event was assessed with a simple post event satisfaction survey and use of the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale-21 (ISVS) pre and post the event.
Summary of Use: In the first year, the event was conducted only on the main campus with 131 participants. They all completed the ISVS pre-event survey one-week prior to the event and then immediately after the event using paper pencil surveys. We had 131 pre-surveys and 126 post surveys. However, for anonymity, no identifiers were gathered and therefore the surveys could not be paired. In the second year, the event had 288 participants; 232 on the main campus and 56 at the distant campus. The ISVS was distributed via an electronic survey tool. This change in delivery enabled the pairing of results. However, 278 students completed the pre ISVS survey and only 182 completed the post ISVS. A comparison of mean ISVS scores has revealed no significant differences pre and post. 116 (88%) and 190 (82%), in the first and second years of the event respectively, completed the satisfaction survey. Over 75% strongly agreed/agreed to the event being worthwhile and helpful.
Importance to Members: Most healthcare professions must meet an IPE standard. Through this simulation event, several sub-competencies of the 4 core competencies for IP collaborative practice can be met. It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of IPE educational events. Although, anecdotally and with simple assessment the events appear to be worthwhile. More investigation and follow through to assess effectiveness are needed.