Context / probleemstelling of aanleiding

Context/probleemstelling of aanleiding:

For graduate pharmacy students, learning to combine one’s own professional contribution and that of other health professionals, as well as learning about shared decision making and patient communication is important (1). A module was developed, to help students to improve patient-oriented functioning in an interprofessional team (2).

Beschrijving van de interventie/innovatie:

The interprofessional collaboration and patient orientation learning goals for first year graduate students pharmaceutical sciences at Utrecht University were concretized in an interprofessional clinic-based module within the psychiatric and the geriatric department, allowing pharmacy interns to practice interprofessional collaboration and direct patient communication.

Students participated in the day clinic for psychiatric patients with somatic comorbidities. They presented their findings during the day closing multidisciplinary consultation.

Pharmacy students were asked to optimize the medication regimen of two geriatric patients (paper cases) together with medical students. The first case they prepared independent from one-another after which they discussed their findings during a supervised meeting. The second case they prepared together, followed by presenting their team advices during a supervised meeting. Next pharmacy students engaged in a conversation with a geriatric patient concerning their medication, followed by feedback on their communication skills. As part of the new module pharmacy students were asked at fixed times to reflect on their learning experiences.

The aim of this study is to exploring feasibility of implementing this module in addition to exploring pharmacy students’ experiences and perception on interprofessional collaboration, shared decision making and patient communication.

Ervaringen/analyse van de implementatie:

Pharmacy students were enthusiastic about the module and indicated it increased their awareness of differences between perspectives of health care workers, they stated to have received useful feedback on their communication skills in direct patient communication.

Incorporating active reflective practices in addition to an interprofessional module for pharmacy interns, enhanced pharmacy interns awareness of the importance of including patient perspective and of the additional value of discussing pharmacotherpeutic advices with other healthcare workers.

Scheduling the different parts of this module requires a high level of collaboration within the hospital setting, in addition to the need to align schedules to allocate moments for the pharmacy and medical students to actively work together.

Lessons learned (implicaties voor de praktijk):

Experiential learning in an interprofessional clinical setting may help pharmacy students develop interprofessional collaboration and patient communication skills.

Supervising students in this experiential learning setting is highly time-consuming. Supervising time (financing) needs to be created.

Referenties:

WHO 2010: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70185/WHO_HRH_HPN_10.3_eng.pdf;jsessionid=B03653C3128FBC950B1AF4F7CBC5C924?sequence=1

Visser CLF, Kusurkar RA, Croiset G, Ten Cate O, Westerveld HE. Students’ motivation for interprofessional collaboration after their experience on an IPE ward: A qualitative analysis framed by self-determination theory.