Development of Interprofessional Education Modules for Implementation into the Doctor of Nursing Practice Curriculum

Abstract

In today’s health care system, professionals must work together to achieve a common goal of improving patient care. Studies have shown that patients and families report lack of care coordination that result in repeat tests and procedures, unnecessary hospitalizations and difficult transitions from hospitals to home (Reinhard & Hassmiller, 2010). Interprofessional education (IPE) is an important approach for preparing health professional students to provide care that is patient centered and based in a collaborative team environment. Interprofessional education “occurs when two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” (World Health Organization, 2010). The goal of these efforts is to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that result in interprofessional team behaviors to carry into clinical practice (Buring et al., 2009). Nurse practitioners will need to be equipped with the proper educational tools to work in a collaborative setting (Reinhard & Hassmiller, 2010). Current nursing education standards include requirements for interprofessional collaboration at the doctoral level of education (QSEN, 2012). The current Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) curriculum at NDSU has no specific objectives that focus on IPE and the AACN DNP essential competencies. The purpose of the project was to influence curricular change at NDSU to include IPE in the graduate nursing program. To meet that goal, three educational modules were developed based on core competencies of IPE. The titles of the modules were “Introduction to Interprofessional Education,” “Interprofessional Communication” and “Patient Safety and Improving Quality in Health Care.” The project was presented to the DNP faculty at NDSU to disseminate the findings and prove IPE’s importance for DNP students. The modules were reviewed by IPE experts from local universities with overall positive feedback. Several recommendations for improvement were provided to strengthen the content within the modules. Overall, there is a convincing need for the integration of interprofessional education into graduate nursing programs. The developed modules are a beginning to the process of integrating IPE into the DNP program at NDSU and will serve as a foundation to build on in coming months and years.