Expanding Opportunities for Interprofessional Education and Teamwork Among Healthcare Professionals Through Virtual Means
Poster Description:
Introduction: Team FIRST is an institutional program founded to address educational gaps in communication and teamwork for interprofessional learners hosted by UT Southwestern. The longitudinal curriculum comprises five modules that build upon each other to teach teamwork competencies. Module 1, Introduction to Teamwork (ITT), is an annual interprofessional event that hosts over 1000 diverse pre-clinical learners from UT Southwestern and regional institutions. ITT aims to educate learners about other professions engaged in healthcare and the criticality of interprofessional collaboration to provide a holistic approach to patient care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was transitioned to a virtual educational platform. We propose that interprofessional learners and instructors will have positive reactions to teamwork training and enhanced appreciation for interprofessional collaboration following our virtual curriculum.
Methods: Interprofessional learners participated in a virtual curriculum surrounding a case scenario following a patient with type 2 diabetes. The scenario showcases the importance of interprofessional teamwork in caring for a patient with diabetes longitudinally to portray the different physical and psychological stages of the disease process in both inpatient and outpatient settings. This 90-minute activity consists of short video clips highlighting different phases of the patient’s interprofessional care continuum with interspersed discussion questions facilitated by interprofessional educators. Learners and faculty completed a post-activity survey to assess reactions to the learning activity and its perceived utility. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.
Results: A total of 998 interprofessional learners participated in the ITT activity from 9 different professions. More than 120 interprofessional faculty instructors facilitated the discussion-based questions for the module. Participants were divided into groups of 8 - 9 learners with one instructor. In total, 932 interprofessional learners and 60 faculty instructors completed the post-surveys. Learners and faculty responded to 10 and 18 reaction items, respectively. Most learners and faculty had positive reactions to the activity, with an overall mean score of 4.27 out of 5 and 4.34 out of 5, respectively.
Conclusions: Our virtual education curriculum is an effective, efficient, and engaging means to teach communication and teamwork among interprofessional learners and receives positive reactions from both learners and faculty overall. Additionally, the curriculum aids learners in appreciating the roles of all professions involved in multi-professional care. Finally, our virtual curriculum is scalable to include more learners with more instructors and can be adapted for virtual or in-person education.
