Susan L. Huehn
St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, USA
Title: Implementation of interprofessional education in the baccalaureate nursing curriculum
Biography
Biography: Susan L. Huehn
Abstract
When healthcare professionals collaborate and communicate effectively as teams with a sound understanding of others’ roles and responsibilities, then patients receive higher quality, and safer care (Bridges, Davidson, Odegard, Maki, & Tomowiak, 2011; Sullivan, & Godfrey, 2012). While this is an expectation in professional practice, little emphasis has been placed on the implementation of interprofessional education in the nursing curriculum (Priest et al., 2011). Healthcare students typically receive their education in a cohort of others working toward the same specialization and training. IPE is gaining recognition as a way for healthcare students to practice collaboratively. Two separate simulations were conducted at a liberal arts college in the Midwestern United States with current nursing students (n=24) in an attempt to improve interprofessional collaboration and prevent negative stereotypes from developing. Both simulations utilized the same scenario, a retired nursing professor in the emergency department having ingested an overdose of hypnotics no longer wishing to live following the death of her husband. Students were required to provide both physical and emotional care, having the chaplain and social workers available as consults in the respective simulation.
Reflections were gathered from the senior mental health students (n=24) in a basic qualitative study. Encouraging support was gleaned from participant comments. In the second simulation utilizing the same scenario, social work students participated as members of the interprofessional team. Quantitative data was gathered exploring attitudinal factors. Favorable results were discovered in the understanding of each other’s profession, as well as the boundaries of one’s own profession.