Date of Award

9-2017

Rights

© 2017 Daniel Mickool

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Brianna Parsons

Second Advisor

Michael Patrick

Third Advisor

Allison Morrill

Abstract

Interprofessional education (IPE) in health professions continues to garner attention and is widely encouraged in the overall improvement of health care delivery in the U.S. The lack of communication and cross-profession collaboration contributes to errors and lower patient outcomes. As a result, medical education is undergoing transformation as new models are sought to deliver curricula that foster collaboration among health care disciplines. The purpose of this mixed methods program evaluation was to explore pharmacy and medical students’ perceptions of interprofessional learning after a six-week clinical rotation in a family medicine setting, as well as describe student perceptions of patient benefits resulting from collaboration. This program evaluation was conducted using a mixed methods approach with three instruments used in sequential order: ATHCT (Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams); SPICE (Student Perceptions of Physician/Pharmacist Interprofessional Clinical Education); and TSS (Team Skills Scale). Three items on the SPICE tool showed significant change in the roles and responsibilities domain and it showed that clinical practice experiences were the ideal places for pharmacy and medical students to interact. Results of all items on the TSS (Team Skills Scale) showed improvement, and 9 out 17 showed statistical significance. Qualitative findings showed that students learned about another health profession as a result of this shared clinical experience and that collaboration was often easy and natural. Students described how collaboration allowed for optimization of patient care. Increased knowledge and observation of health care professional roles promoted the act of collaboration for pharmacy and medical students and allowed for more open and honest communication with other health care professionals for patient care concerns. Finally, medical students recognized pharmacy students as collaborative direct care providers.

Comments

Ed.D. Dissertation

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