Alignment of an interprofessional student learning experience with a hospital quality improvement initiative

Assessment of interprofessional education (IPE) frequently focuses on students’ learning outcomes including changes in knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes. While a foundational education in the values and information of their chosen profession is critical, interprofessional learning follows a continuum from formal education to practice. The continuum increases in significance and complexity as learning becomes more relationship based and dependent upon the ability to navigate complex interactions with patients, families, communities, co-workers, and others. Integrating IPE into collaborative practice is critical to enhancing students’ experiential learning, developing teamwork competencies, and understanding the complexity of teams. This article describes a project that linked students with a hospital-based quality-improvement effort to focus on the acquisition and practice of teamwork skills and to determine the impact of teamwork on patient and quality outcome measures. A hospital unit was identified with an opportunity for improvement related to quality care, patient satisfaction, employee engagement, and team behaviours. One hundred and thirty-seven students from six health profession colleges at the Medical University of South Carolina underwent TeamSTEPPS® training and demonstrated proficiency of their teamwork-rating skills with the TeamSTEPPS® Team Performance Observation Tool (T-TPO). Students observed real-time team behaviours of unit staff before and after staff attended formal TeamSTEPPS® training. The students collected a total of 778 observations using the T-TPO. Teamwork performance on the unit improved significantly across all T-TPO domains (team structure, communication, leadership, situation monitoring, and mutual support). Significant improvement in each domain continued post-intervention and at 15-month follow-up, improvement remained significant compared to baseline. Student engagement in TeamSTEPPS® training and demonstration of their reliability as teamwork-observers was a valuable learning experience and also yielded an opportunity to gather unique, and otherwise difficult to attain, data from a hospital unit for use by quality managers and administrators.

跨专业教育（interprofessional education, IPE）的评估通常聚焦于学生的学习成果，包括知识、技能和/或态度的转变。尽管所选专业的价值观与信息基础教学至关重要，但跨专业学习遵循从正规教育到临床实践的连续体。该连续体的重要性与复杂性随学习愈发依赖关系构建，且愈发需要具备驾驭与患者、家属、社区、同事及其他群体间复杂互动的能力而不断提升。将跨专业教育融入协作实践，对于强化学生的体验式学习、培养团队协作能力以及理解团队运作的复杂性均至关重要。本文介绍了一项联动学生与医院质量改进项目的研究，旨在聚焦团队协作技能的习得与实践，并评估团队协作对患者与质量结局指标的影响。某医院科室因优质护理、患者满意度、员工敬业度及团队行为等方面存在改进空间而被选中。南卡罗来纳医科大学（Medical University of South Carolina）下设6个健康专业学院的137名学生参与了TeamSTEPPS®培训，并通过TeamSTEPPS®团队绩效观察工具（TeamSTEPPS® Team Performance Observation Tool, T-TPO）展示了其团队协作评分技能的熟练度。学生们在科室员工接受正规TeamSTEPPS®培训前后，对其团队的实时行为进行了观察。学生们总计通过T-TPO完成了778份观察记录。该科室的团队协作表现在T-TPO的所有维度（团队结构、沟通、领导力、情境监控及互助支持）上均取得了显著提升。干预后各维度的改善持续显现，且在15个月的随访中，相较于基线水平，改善效果仍保持显著。学生参与TeamSTEPPS®培训并作为团队协作观察者展现其信度的过程，不仅是一次宝贵的学习体验，同时也为质量管理人员与行政人员提供了难得的、难以通过其他途径获取的医院科室数据。