Utilization of Social Media to Facilitate Clinical Based Interprofessional Education
Background
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a new level of innovation has been required to ensure quality education for healthcare students. As the student advisory committee for Duke’s Interprofessional Education Care (IPEC) Center, we have been tasked with creating, planning, and executing a solution to effectively educate our peers on the scope and daily functions of various healthcare professionals within a virtual environment.
Design/Methods
The “Day in the Life” initiative is a social media experience aimed at giving current and future healthcare students a better understanding of different interprofessional roles without physically entering a clinic. We will curate content from fellow students, faculty, and clinicians to create Instagram-story vignettes that follow the participant through their daily tasks. These videos will highlight points such as daily responsibilities, highs and lows of the job, advice, and what they wish others knew about their role within an interprofessional team. Additionally, engagement will be facilitated via trivia questions, polls, and question & answer sessions. This is a month-long initiative strategically planned to align with the matriculation of new cohorts. The videos will be streamed on each program’s existing Instagram page, with each week highlighting a different one of Duke’s programs including: Medical Doctor, Physician Assistant, Doctorate of Physical Therapy, and the programs within the School of Nursing. Each program will also have the opportunity to ask profession-specific questions surrounding collaboration between their own profession and the one highlighted that week.
Results
Pre and post surveys gauging attitudes towards the initiative will be used to evaluate the success. as well as provide analytics to implement change in the future. We plan to utilize components of the Interprofessional Attitudes Scale (IPAS). We will also gather data surrounding the views, responses, participation, and engagement of these stories to evaluate the reach of the content.
Conclusions
The goal of this takeover is to provide students exposure to other professions without requiring physical proximity. We believe that even in a post-pandemic world, there will be benefits to sustaining this initiative including reaching a wider audience as well as interprofessional education being implemented earlier in the academic curriculum. In the future, we hope the initiative can expand to include even more professions and showcase all of the important roles that keep a hospital running.
