Strategies Teaching Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice and Education at a Nurse Managed Clinic in Underserved Communities

Nursing faculty utilize Interprofessional Collaborative Practice and Education (IPCP/IPE) to integrate multiple competencies into healthcare profession programs providing a platform for faculty development and leadership skills among students. The Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2015) called for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPCP) and Interprofessional Education (IPE) as a model for improving quality healthcare while decreasing costs. Interprofessional education in community settings has been isolated from practice and curricula often lack relevant content and guidelines for implementation. Integrating evidence based practice (EBP) as a problem solving approach within an IPE educational format in community settings has been minimally described. Eight disciplines that included Nursing, Healthcare Administration, Clinical Laboratory Science, Data Analysis, Clinical Affairs, Informatics Specialists, Integrative Health, and Public Health and students from each of these disciplines participated in a grant funded project to develop protocols for a nurse managed clinic in Watts, a medically underserved community in Los Angeles, California. Faculty and RN/BSN students participated in twelve online synchronous IPCP/IPE workshops consisting of three phases. The first Phase or the Didactic component was the organizing framework providing the foundation for all health professions curricula is based on the principles of collaboration, increasing diversity and mutual human-environmental processes. The second phase or the Simulation component supported the collaboration and interprofessional team training utilizing interactive video scenarios. In Phase 3, the Clinical component, students were assigned to the Project to gain hands on experience in meeting the needs of diverse patient populations under the supervision of the Project Manager, Project Coordinator and Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs). The objectives for the RN-BSN students were to 1) develop a patient-centered diabetes disease management tool, 2) create a tool to establish a continuum of self-management assessment, and 3) provide culturally and linguistically sensitive diabetic management interventions to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates. Unique opportunities exist in utilizing IPE/IPCP to integrate multiple competencies into healthcare profession programs that will prepare graduates to navigate successfully the complex, healthcare landscape throughout their careers. This presentation reflects on the development of protocols providing suggestions for future interprofessional collaborative practices.