9
INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND
The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) was created in 2009 to advance interprofessional learning experiences for healthcare professional Students. Interprofessional competencies support efforts to engage healthcare professional Students in interactive sessions on Values and Ethics, Roles and Responsibilities, Communication, and Teams and Teamwork. Despite growing recognition of the importance of interprofessional education (IPE), many osteopathic medical schools still lack formalized IPE in their pre-clerkship curriculum. As healthcare is team-based and osteopathic clinicians must be well-versed in interpersonal collaboration, osteopathic medical Students (OMS) should gain exposure to IPE early in their training. Since 2018, Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MSUCOM) has housed 4 IPE events per academic year, addressing the lack of formal IPE in the pre-clerkship curriculum.
OBJECTIVES
The study aims to evaluate the impact of IPE in the Roles and Responsibilities domain on pre-clerkship OMS interprofessional competencies.
METHODS
A prospective cohort study involved OMS participating in a virtual IPE event on Roles and Responsibilities. Anonymous electronic validated questionnaires assessed changes across 16 interprofessional competencies pre- and post-event (IRB STUDY00007933). Codes were applied for paired analysis. Descriptive statistics used measures of frequency and central tendency. Pre- and post-event scores were evaluated with Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The difference in characteristics (i.e., gender, prior experience with IPE, clinical experience) and competency scores were evaluated with Fisher’s exact and Chi-square tests.
RESULTS
242 OMS attended the Roles and Responsibilities IPE event, of which 48 surveys were paired (19.8%). Scores across 15/16 (93.8%) competencies increased significantly (P<0.05) from pre- to post-event. Of the 15 competencies, 34.8% had increased scores, and 50% had an increase across 5+ competencies. Scores were independent of gender, education, or prior experience with healthcare or IPE sessions.
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS
The Roles and Responsibilities IPE session positively affected interprofessional competencies in OMS at MSUCOM. The measured interprofessional competencies increased despite high pre-event scores. The increase was not affected by factors influencing success in IPE (i.e., gender, education, and prior experience with healthcare or IPE sessions). The demonstrated effectiveness of IPE events in developing interprofessional competencies in OMS reveals a positive assessment of formal IPE in osteopathic medical school curricula.