Purpose: The Nursing faculty worked to increase interprofessional collaboration among healthcare faculty as well as to design and implement an interprofessional simulation.
Literature Review: Many healthcare professions are requiring interprofessional standards be implemented within the curriculum for accreditation based on the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2009) recommendation that “academic institutions and healthcare organizations need to make a real commitment to interprofessional education that develops and sustains collaborative skills, both before and after licensure.” The American Association of Colleges of Nursing and Manatt Health Project Team (2016) also recommend the “development of interprofessional education efforts institution-wide” (p. 25). However, it can be difficult for faculty to establish interprofessional relationships in order to build educational activities.
Engum and Jeffries (2012) described an initial step in developing an interprofessional curriculum as focusing on putting the patient first, teamwork, and quality care. These principles reflected guiding concepts for healthcare professionals. Engum and Jeffries (2012) then described the development of an interprofessional curriculum that included competencies from both a School of Nursing and School of Medicine that included: “communication, professionalism, system-based practice, knowledge, and problem-solving” (p. 146). This is similar to the work described by Pardue (2013), where an interprofessional curriculum was developed and included the concepts of “teamwork, collaboration, communication, respect, problem solving, conflict resolution, knowledge of roles, reflection/personal awareness and ethics” (p. 98-99). All of these concepts are connected to the Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (2016) of Values/Ethics, Roles/Responsibilities, Communication, and Teamwork.
However, there are a number of barriers facing faculty members when implementing interprofessional education, including scheduling conflicts, resource and support limitations, curricular restrictions within single disciplines, or a lack of mutual respect (Jones & Phillips, 2016). McKinlay et al. (2015) acknowledged these barriers when they stated that developing an interprofessional teaching team takes time. An extended period of time working together is necessary in order to learn about various roles and develop trusting relationships. The National League for Nursing (2016) issued a statement regarding Interprofessional Education as an essential element in nursing curricula. Nursing administrators and faculty are being charged with creating a collaborative learning atmosphere to match the already existing team-based approach in clinical settings.
Methods: The university built a Health Pavilion, which houses all healthcare professions on campus, clinic space for community partners, as well as the simulation center. The Clinical Learning and Simulation Center Coordinator invited other healthcare faculty to join an existing Simulation Interest Group to foster interprofessional learning. The department of Athletic Training was already utilizing a simulation experience with their students, and this served as the starting point for other healthcare faculty to partner in the creation and implementation of this collaborative simulation experience. Faculty members within Nursing, Athletic Training and Occupational Therapy created an interprofessional simulation scenario over several months and implemented it in the summer of 2016.
Outcomes: A group of interprofessional faculty incorporated students from the Nursing, Athletic Training, and Occupational Therapy programs. The simulation experience was successfully implemented. The Nursing faculty members are continuing to work with Athletic Training and Occupational Therapy and are now also partnering with faculty from Psychology, Social Work, and Physical Therapy to implement another interprofessional simulation in the summer of 2017.
Significance to Nursing: Nursing faculty need to have an understanding of how to collaborate with faculty in other health professions to aid them in creating and implementing interprofessional learning experiences. Further research is needed to measure faculty perceptions of interprofessional collaboration and the best ways to create collaborative interprofessional faculty teams.
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