Interprofessionality

Initial situation

The Interprofessional Simulation Center (CiS) proposes a longitudinal program integrated into the curricula of the University of Geneva’s Faculty of Medicine (UNIGE), the University of Applied Sciences (HEdS), the HES-SO Geneva (5 programs involved) and the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland (ISPSO). This program consists of 3 training modules and interprofessional activities in internship.

As part of the first module of this program, the CiS has set up an interprofessional conference in order to respond to a public health issue: to reinforce coordination and communication between the different health professionals involved, often from different structures, both inside and outside the hospital, around the same patient. Each year, more than 600 students from 7 different disciplines participate in this module (Nursing, Midwifery, Physiotherapy, Medical Radiology, Nutrition & Dietetics, Medicine and Pharmacy).

Project implementation

The teaching team’s objective is to set up a system that allows students to acquire the cross-disciplinary skills necessary for interprofessional collaboration by working on the construction of common knowledge. The module must allow them to learn together, to learn from each other and to learn about each other. It was therefore necessary to define the essential skills to be acquired through the module.

The pedagogical activities were set up in such a way as to encourage maximum learning, skill acquisition and interaction between students. The CiS project team proposed a program of activities in the form of a week-long conference entitled “Immersion in Interprofessionalism”. These interactive and original educational activities improve the quality of care through the discovery of each other’s activities and collaborative tools. Groups of 8 students are formed and the workshops welcome an average of 20 students.

Typically, the following activities are organized:

A medical pursuit game in the city (read the related project).

Plenary lectures co-teached by patients and trainers on the notion of partnership in care. For example, during a workshop, the theoretical basis of “crew resources management”, a method developed in the aviation industry to increase safety through human and non-technical skills, is taught to students for 30 minutes. They are then subjected to a role-playing exercise in which they have to manage together a medical disaster situation with several serious victims. The simulation takes place in class and is followed by a 30-minute debriefing detailing the positive points and points to be improved.

A debate on the interprofessional issues of the health care system.

A choice of thematic workshops. For example, cooperative board games (mysterium and pandemic) are offered to students. These games encourage students to collaborate and give their opinions as a team. They allow students to practice a briefing that provides a shared representation of the situation and ensures that everyone has understood and is ready to plan for future actions. In professional practice, the briefing is a very useful tool that makes interprofessional work more effective. After the game session, the coach debriefs what happened in the game, what led to the decisions made.

Prior to this interprofessional week, each student is asked to interview a health professional about a good or bad experience from his or her professional career. Following the interview, a meeting is organized for groups of 8 students accompanied by a tutor. During these meetings, they have to choose 2 experiences out of all those collected in order to analyze the effective tools used in the good experience and what was missing in the bad one.

In 2020-21, an e-learning pathway has been added, as well as a workshop created in partnership with patients. The course focuses on the TeamSTEPPS® (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) teamwork model, which includes a set of tools to improve leadership, communication, mutual support and monitoring within teams. It optimizes the interaction of individuals and the use of resources, facilitates the transmission of information, and promotes effective communication. During the e-learning course: “Interprofessionality, Human Factors & Communication”, students discover the strategies and tools of TeamSTEPPS® teamwork, with a focus on communication. These strategies and tools are then integrated into individual and group work in the first module, and into team simulations in the following modules.

The content of the courses and conferences, as well as the materials and readings, are made available in a HEDS Moodle space on Cyberlearn. In addition, the teaching team offers time slots dedicated to students’ questions.

The entire module is managed by the CiS team to guarantee the pedagogical coherence of the activities and their logistical implementation. More than 50 speakers are called upon to deliver the lectures. The teachers who supervise the students in the writing of their analysis papers come from the different faculties and fields involved in the pre-graduate IP training. These teachers monitor the students’ interviews and correct the individual and group work.

To ensure consistency between learning objectives, teaching methods and evaluations, several evaluation formats are used:

A written report (individual or in pairs) of a semi-directed interview with a health professional on two interprofessional practice situations

A written summary (individual or in pairs) of these 2 situations, posted online (Moodle) to the team

A written work (in team) of analysis of the semi-directed interviews

A written exam (individual) of the MCQ type on the knowledge covered since the beginning of the module to be done on Moodle

Thoughts and advice

As the project is large-scale, the teaching team had to first ensure institutional support, which had to be backed by a strong political willingness to address a public health issue. To perpetuate such a project, it is also important to ensure that the content is updated to guarantee the quality of the training and to respond to national and international recommendations, to adapt to the new fields and to integrate the evolution of the competency referentials.

The success of the “Immersion in Interprofessionalism” conference is also due to the establishment of a competent team for both the pedagogical and logistical organization of such an event. For example, the team’s roles and responsibilities include electronic communication with hundreds of students and dozens of speakers, the planning of dozens of teaching rooms and videoconference links, and the quality process for the evaluation of collaborative work and individual MCQs. To ensure a project of this scope, the CiS team had to be interprofessional. For this project, it mobilized nine members (secretary, assistant, techno-pedagogical assistant, lecturer, professor, institutional representatives and program managers), with complementary skills and an in-depth understanding of the care and learning contexts of the various training programs.

Despite the severe logistical constraints of integrating a common week into the respective academic calendars of all study streams, the CiS received several awards for the various interprofessional modules it implemented.

Student feedback

“This week covered topics outside of our training in each track and the contact with other students from other tracks was interesting. We also had to adapt to people we don’t know and it created interprofessional work among us in addition to what we had to write about interprofessionally.” “The workshops are varied and interesting, the interprofessional group work very rewarding.” “Despite the health crisis, it was interesting to find a method to maintain this interprofessional week. I learned a lot and look forward to experimenting with this in my future internships.” “Interesting and varied workshops and plenaries. + possibility to participate during the workshops - Very good organization - the rally was necessary for an introduction of each profession” “Interesting to work collaboratively.” “This is a rich week. It reminds us of the importance of collaboration. It’s good that it’s not just a class.” “The involvement of professionals from different professions - The e-learning courses were really great.” “The opportunity to work already now with students from other majors - Having health care professionals talk to us about their daily lives and the things we will need to pay attention to in order to have a pleasant work climate and provide quality interdisciplinary care for patients.” “The assignment to an IP group has greatly motivated me to be interested in other training tracks in healthcare and has taught me how to organize everyone’s ideas in group work.”