Making it Work! IPE in the Clinical Setting Guided by a Web-Based Toolkit

Theme: This seminar will present an innovation in interprofessional learning in practice that addresses IPE challenges in the clinical environment. The sub-themes addressed are faculty development to facilitate interprofessional learning and learner-led interprofessional education.

Learning Objectives: After participation, attendees will be able to:

1. Design an interprofessional student team approach to clinical work that adds value to patient care.
2. Incorporate a structured curriculum into the clinical setting for student self-guided practice of collaborative care team skills.
3. Construct a plan for assessment of student learning and evaluation of the impact on patient care.

Background: Creating and optimizing clinically based interprofessional education experiences for student learning while adding value to patient care is challenging at every step of the process. Difficult steps include collaborating to create the clinical experience, implementing and managing an effective team-skills curriculum, assessment of students’ collaborative skills and evaluation of the impact on patient care. Over the past four years our team developed, implemented, and tested the Interprofessional Learning Experience and Practice model, ILEAP. The model was built upon national and international research and goals for interprofessional education, as well as best practices and lessons learned from our work at Case Western Reserve University. We have placed 122 students on 29 teams at 6 unique clinical sites. We used direct observation and student self-report data to demonstrate the acquisition and application of collaborative care team skills by the student teams, while having a measurable impact on patient care.

Seminar Outline: The ILEAP model focuses on three major components; readiness, application of skills, and value added to patient care. In this workshop, we will present a web-based toolkit, a practical guide, to attendees for use in their own setting. The toolkit includes concrete and specific instructions as well as checklists and worksheets to guide a faculty team through the process, including the use of our observational tool for team skills, DOTI (Direct Observation of Team Interactions). DOTI organizes and guides the 15 team skills taught and assessed in ILEAP.

Case studies drawn from our experiences will be utilized to enhance interactive learning in small groups using selected materials from the toolkit. Cases will be presented focusing on a community clinic interested in an interprofessional student team working with an underserved community. One case presented will be related to changes made during the pandemic. Participants will be organized into breakout rooms to create solutions to the case study problems using worksheets from the toolkit. All participants will re-convene and each breakout group will share their ideas and plans. An overview of the assessment and evaluation methods and instruments implemented in ILEAP will be provided.

Skills attained: Attendees will gain hands-on experience using the toolkit materials through active participation in a small group case study format utilizing breakout rooms. This experience will support attendees’ ability to implement and assess an interprofessional team-based experience in their own clinical setting.
For effective time management of the seminar, we ask that the participants review the web-based tool kit www.ipe-ileaptoolkit.org before attending.