Integrating Diverse Disciplines to Enhance Interprofessional Competency in Healthcare Delivery

Interprofessional education (IPE) typically involves clinical simulation exercises with students from medical and nursing schools. Yet, healthcare requires patient-centered teams that include diverse disciplines. Students from public health and informatics are rarely incorporated into IPE, signaling a gap in current educational practices. In this study, we integrated students from administrative and non-clinical disciplines into traditional clinical simulations and measured the effect on communication and teamwork. From July 2017–July 2018, 408 students from five schools (medicine, nursing, dentistry, public health, and informatics) participated in one of eight three-hour IPE clinical simulations with Standardized Patients and electronic health record technologies. Data were gathered using a pre-test–post-test interventional Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Survey (ICCAS) and through qualitative evaluations from Standardized Patients. Of the total 408 students, 386 (94.6%) had matched pre- and post-test results from the surveys. There was a 15.9% improvement in collaboration overall between the pre- and post-tests. ICCAS competencies showed improvements in teamwork, communication, collaboration, and conflict management, with an average change from 5.26 to 6.10 (t = 35.16; p < 0.001). We found by creating new clinical simulations with additional roles for non-clinical professionals, student learners were able to observe and learn interprofessional teamwork from each other and from faculty role models.