Multidisciplinary Care: Using a Simple Approach to Promote Team-Based Learning and Patient Safety

Students enrolled in health professional degree programs often learn, in theory, of the roles and responsibilities of other health care team members in general. Little interaction is undertaken during their academic preparation, but rather this occurs when they are indoctrinated into their professional roles outside of academia. With national shortages of nursing and other health care professionals, employers are expecting new graduates to perform within the health care system as a highly functional member of the team (Masters, O’Toole-Baker, & Jodan, 2013).

Academic preparation for nursing and other healthcare disciplines has undergone few curriculum changes over the years; other than the implementation of patient simulation. New strategies to improve not only their individual level of readiness to care for simple to complex patient scenarios, but to apply knowledge learned in collaboration with multiple healthcare disciplines is essential to prepare students for today’s workforce, to increase professional satisfaction, and to contribute to the improvement of quality patient centered outcomes (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). Educational strategies, implemented by a Northwest Pennsylvania university, have been shown to increase student’s leadership ability, improve communication skills, utilize situation monitoring in the care of the patient, and increase their appreciation for other disciplines by incorporating an intraprofessional care model across curriculums.

TeamStepps®, developed by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), to improve communication and promote patient safety, and the SIMPLE® approach, a strategy developed and implemented by university faculty, were utilized to bring together health care professionals as a collaborative team (Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, (2011). Disciplines inclusive of nursing, radiologic science, respiratory therapy, and physician assistant students and faculty worked collaboratively to provide care for simple to complex patient care scenarios. Faculty incorporated a shared vision and content inclusion for their respective curriculum inclusive of respiratory conditions, trauma and cardiac arrest. This combination of strategies has been instrumental in redirecting educational methodologies that prepare our graduates to be workforce ready using a multidisciplinary interactive simulation based learning environment to deliver care.