Healthcare educators are to prepare and graduate competent health care professionals who are able to provide safe patient and family-centered care (AACN, 2012). Educating health profession students about patient safety has been a priority since the publication of the “To Err Is Human” report in 1999. Traditionally, teaching health profession students about patient safety involves the use of case studies, simulation scenarios, and clinical activities. An innovative approach to develop and implement interprofessional education (IPE) activities that promote safety is to partner with patient advisors. Involving patients and their families as advisors helps healthcare professionals understand the patient side of healthcare, learn what really matters for the patients and their families, and promote patient engagement in creating a safe patient and family-centered care (AHRQ, 2017). The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) defines a patient advisor as “a person with lived experience as a patient or family member who is collaborating with a healthcare organization and shows success, drive, and interest in improving the patient experience” (McTiernan, 2017).
Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to develop and implement interprofessional education activities in partnership with patient advisors to teach patient safety, to promote awareness of the impact of medical errors on the patient, and to help students meet the Interprofessional Education Collaborative core competencies of roles/responsibilities, communication, and teamwork (IPEC, 2016, p. 10).
Methods:
In preparation for the IPE workshop, pharmacy and nursing students were required to complete two IHI Open School patient safety courses; PS 100: Introduction to Patient Safety and PS 101: Fundamentals of Patient Safety (IHI, 2016). On the workshop day, students were divided into four groups; each group had a mix of nursing and pharmacy students. The first activity was designed to help students learn about each other’s roles and responsibilities. Each group was asked to draw a Venn diagram and write similarities and differences between their roles. The second activity involved two patient safety advisors, who were invited as guests to talk about their experience as patients and to share with the students the patient safety issues that they experienced. Following the advisors’ stories, students were given a chance to ask questions and interact with patient advisors. After the advisors left, students worked together in groups to address patients’ concerns and to brainstorm ways of collaborating together to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
Students completed a short online survey anonymously before and after the workshop. Survey questions were taken from the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) (Luecht et al., 1990). The post-workshop survey included the same questions as the pre-survey, plus questions to measure students’ learning about patient safety and to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational activities. Students were also given the opportunity to respond to open ended questions to voice their levels of satisfaction with the activities and their recommendation for improvements.
Results:
The IEPS survey showed that of the 54 students, over 96% reported that the activities enhanced their knowledge of patient safety, improved their knowledge of the types of medical errors, and increased their knowledge of how to handle medical errors in the future. Over 94% of students reported that the activity enhanced their ability to prevent medical errors and over 98% reported that hearing the patients' experiences helped them understand the impact of medical errors on patients. Over 89% of students reported that the activities enabled them to learn something from a student in a different curriculum and increased their understanding of other healthcare professional roles. Over 87% reported that the activities enhanced their communication skills with other professional students. Over 82% rated the activities as excellent. Overall, students were highly satisfied with the IPE activities and listening to real life scenarios from patient advisors. The activities helped students gain insight from the patient point of view concerning their care and highlighted the impact of medical errors on patients.
Students recommended to include other health profession students, including the medical students, in the activities to add more interaction between professions and inclusion of more similar IPE activities throughout their education.
Conclusion:
Developing interprofessional education activities utilizing patient advisors helped students understand the importance of patient safety and the impact of medical errors on patients. Students were highly satisfied with the IPE activities. Impact for nursing education/practice: Teaching patient safety to health profession students in an IPE format from the patient point of view is paramount to health profession education. It will help students as they engage in collaborative practice to improve patient safety, improve patient outcomes, improve patient experience, and reduce the cost of care to help achieve the triple aim (IHI, 2017).