The semester long pilot project was undertaken to engage students in collaborative interprofessional learning using small group work. The teamwork and communication framework developed through the TeamStepps program (AHRQ, 2017) assisted students to practice addressing issues of medication safety in community based settings. Teams had access to online drug handbooks and pharmacy resources during the activities. After the presentation of a complex case and completion of the medication safety activities, teams worked together to build community focused plans for implementation of medication safety and medication practices unique to community based practice. The three (3) hour sessions were held on campus with community based pharmacy rotations for the pharmacy students to enhance the student experience as well as community health home care or other community site rotation experiences for nursing students. Through careful selection of real-world cases susceptible to medication error as well as cases which demand collaboration between nursing and pharmacy students in community settings, students were engaged in guided discussion and problem solving with the final group assessment focused on performance based evaluation of the creation of plans to address the patient medication safety needs. Overall, student learning outcomes were assessed using a classroom assessment to check understanding in the areas of medication safety, teamwork, communication, and collaboration. Further summative assessment was developed in each individual course to assess the learning outcomes linked back to the context of the interprofessional experience.
Interprofessional Educational Collaboration Between Graduate Outpatient Pharmacy and BSN Community Health Nursing Students
Friday, 20 April 2018
Interprofessional educational opportunities for undergraduate nursing students as well as graduate pharmacy students are an essential focus of curriculum development work at the university. As described by Frank, Chen, and Bhutta (2010), professional education is in need of further interprofessional reform and the authors encourage educators to look at transformative learning and interdependency between healthcare disciplines to help engage students in the healthcare problems of the twenty first century. A primary issue in interprofessional care involves medication practices and collaboration for medication safety in the outpatient care setting. The National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering as outlined in the report, Preventing Medication Errors (2007) as well as the medication safety work on community pharmacy medication safety completed by Institute of Safe Medication Practices (2017) continue to stress the importance of medication safety in all practice settings, including community based practices and patient homes. In academic settings, the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN, 2007) competencies highlight the importance of teamwork and collaboration for patient safety in nursing education as does the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) standards for accreditation and competencies in pharmacy schools. The interprofessional education work developed by Wilbur, Hasnani-Samnani, and Kelly (2015) demonstrated success in interprofessional education between pharmacy and undergraduate nursing students in medication case study simulations related to management of diabetic ketoacidosis across the continuum of care. With the learning goals to increase student exposure to interprofessional education and to enhance patient medication and medication safety knowledge and skills of students, faculty from the School of Nursing and School of Pharmacy partnered to develop a semester long experiential learning project using simulation, case studies, and focused discussion to enhance patient medication safety through collaboration and teamwork within the ambulatory care pharmacy (RX511 and RX512) and community health nursing (NU412) courses.