Why an IPE Team Matters… Improvement in Identification of Hospital Hazards: A Room of Horrors Pilot Study

PURPOSE: To evaluate student performance in a simulation-based interprofessional learning activity that focused on identifying patient safety hazards in a simulated patient’s hospital room. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Students from nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiography, social education, social work, biomedical laboratory science, dental hygiene, and medicine participated in this two-phased study. In the first phase, students worked alone to identify safety hazards. In the second phase, students worked in interprofessional teams. Following each phase, students completed a structured questionnaire to report their findings. In addition, following the first phase, each student wrote down the hazards they identified in an unstructured essay format. RESULTS: Out of 48 intended hazards, individual students identified 10.7% on the open essay and 42.6% on the questionnaire, and interprofessional teams identified 90.1%. CONCLUSION: The number of hospital hazards identified increased considerably when working in interprofessional teams. A room of horrors exercise expands participants’ observational skills. With some modifications, this pilot study can be implemented on a wider scale with the goal of increasing interprofessional students’ awareness of hospital hazards.