Interprofessional education and assessment

Abstract

A consequence of Interprofessional Education (IPE) that is challenging to study is the improvement in the delivery of health care. The aims were to evaluate the perception and the impact of IPE on the delivery of pharmacy practice, and to develop outcome assessment methodologies capable of measuring the impact of IPE on service provision as it influences patient outcomes and change in organisational practice. The objectives were to: i) review available IPE tools according to psychometric testing, relevance to pharmacy education and practice, and outcomes related to interprofessional collaboration, ii) assess changes in students’ perception of interprofessional collaboration before and after an IPE activity, and iii) design, psychometrically evaluate and implement an innovative IPE tool to determine the impact of IPE activities in pharmacy practice. The methodology involved: i) Literature scoping exercise of IPE activities and tools related to pharmacy education; ii) The Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education–Revised 2 (SPICE-R2) tool was adopted to assess perception of IPE learning activities in undergraduate third year pharmacy, Master in Pharmacy (MPharm) and postgraduate Doctorate in Pharmacy (PharmD) students before (t0) and after (t1) an experiential learning activity; iii) An innovative IPE tool, which measures impact of IPE activities on patient services and change in pharmacy organisational practice, was designed, validated through a three-step Delphi process by a 15 member Delphi panel which included Maltese and international healthcare professionals, and was tested for internal consistency. The tool was disseminated to PharmD students who have undergone interprofessional experiential rotations and PharmD alumni of the University of Malta graduated in 2020. Results: i) 128 instruments to measure IPE activities which assess different outputs, such as competency, autonomy and teamwork attitudes, were identified. Fifty-eight percent of v the tools which have direct applicability to the role of pharmacists on health care teams did not include a pharmacist or a student pharmacist in the psychometric testing; ii) The SPICE-R2 tool was completed at t0 and t1 by 61 students: 12 third year pharmacy students, 13 MPharm students and 36 PharmD students. A significant improvement between t0 and t1 was measured in the three groups of students for: ‘Interprofessional Teamwork and Team-based Practice’ (p=0.035, p=0.005, p=0.010), ‘Roles/Responsibilities for Collaborative Practice’ (p=0.002, p=0.001, p=0.005) and ‘Patient Outcomes from Collaborative Practice’ (p=0.036, p=0.002, p=0.013). The largest improvement was observed in the ‘Roles/Responsibilities for Collaborative Practice’ subscale in all three groups of students; iii) The developed ‘Interprofessional Education on Pharmacy Competencies (IPEPC)’ tool consists of ten statements divided into four core competencies: ‘Values-Ethics for Interprofessional Practice’, ‘Roles Responsibilities’, ‘Interprofessional Communication’ and ‘Teams and Teamwork’. The tool showed high internal consistency between the statements in each of the core competencies (Cronbach’s alpha >0.7). Significant improvement in teamwork (p=0.026) and ethics competencies (p=0.037) were observed when students were clustered by year of study. Perception of IPE appears to be very positive in pharmacy students across different years of study. The developed innovative tool, IPEPC, is a valid and reliable instrument to explore the impact of IPE learning experience on pharmacy practice. The research puts forward a signal that teamwork and ethics competencies may be positively influenced as students’ progress in their pharmacy studies.