How Do I Begin the Conversation: Fostering Interprofessional Communication Through Experiential Learning

Although the field of palliative and end-of-life care is advancing, training pre-licensure students in collaboration and communication skills needs addressed. While trained in clinical skills, health professional students often begin their careers lacking experience and preparedness for intimate, patient conversations. This session will describe the implementation and assessment of a pilot study, “Say Hello,” with nursing and social work pre-licensure students. The aim of “Say Hello” was to determine if participating in this clinical experience would influence health professions students’ attitudes of interprofessional collaboration, confidence and knowledge about end-of-life care as well as knowledge and skills for having intimate conversations with patients and families about living and dying and what matters most.
To create this clinical learning experience, nursing and social work faculty incorporated both content-specific and interprofessional education learning outcomes. Due to COVID pandemic social distancing guidelines at the academic medical center, approximately 25 fourth year undergraduate students first completed asynchronous online pre-reading, video-viewing, and pre-survey activities. Students, faculty, and clinicians then attended a 4-hour virtual event in which they participated collaboratively in the “Hello” game (about end-of-life decisions), large and small group guided discussions, and interacted with an expert clinician panel. The panel’s expertise pertained to palliative and end-of-life care, and included: a hospital chaplain, physician resident, registered nurse, and social worker.
Data collection included demographic characteristics, pre- and post-use of the IPAS tool (Norris et al., 2015), and pre- and post-knowledge/attitude questions that pertained to palliative and end-of-life care. The pre-survey data indicated varying attitudes regarding interprofessional collaboration and low knowledge and confidence pertaining to end-of-life care and advance directives. Results of the pilot study suggest that experiential activities, like these, can positively impact student knowledge, confidence, and engagement in both difficult and interprofessional dialogues. Developing experiential opportunities to afford students hands on practice in a safe place can prepare them for what they will encounter in the healthcare setting.
Although the quantitative data provided insight into students’ interprofessional experiential learning, faculty plan to advance data collection to include a qualitative component in the future. The “Say Hello” pilot study included 25 learners; inviting additional disciplines as well as growing the total number of participants are goals for further developing this learning experience. The plan to also incorporate simulation is also being explored.