Involving Students in Interprofessional and Communication in Health Improvement
Innovation in pedagogy is at the heart of our laboratory's mission. We aim to enhance the learning experience for students in health professions by developing and implementing cutting-edge educational methods. Collaborating with esteemed partners such as the Geneva Interprofessional Simulation Centre (CiS) and the High School of Health (HEdS), we strive to foster a deeper understanding and prepare future healthcare professionals for the complexities of their field.
We provide courses on interprofessional skills and communication, designed to improve therapeutic adherence among patients. Our courses are based on interactions between students, moving away from pure abstraction to experiential learning. Students learn by practicing how to formulate open questions, reflect, and collaborate to improve the quality of communication. We also incorporate the patient perspective through activities. An example is the activity called "Moi et mon médicament," where students take a placebo following specific instructions for a certain period. This activity helps students understand the constraints patients face when managing their treatment, such as taking medication at specific times due to food interactions or while traveling.
Our approach also integrates a variety of innovative pedagogical tools, each designed to address specific learning objectives and enhance student engagement. From e-learning modules to serious games, from shadowing experiences to simulation exercises, and from critical analysis of literature to interactive courses, we offer a comprehensive educational experience that prepares students for real-world challenges.
Below, we present an overview of our innovative pedagogical methods, highlighting their unique contributions to the training of healthcare professionals.
The ISPSO has developed with the CiS (The Center of Interprofessional and Simulation) a serious game. Students are grouped by team. Each team includes students from pharmacy, medicine, nursing, and other health professions. Their mission is to solve a mystery: "what happened to patient Ana?". To achieve this mission, they will visit various points of care (community pharmacy, medical office, hospital, and so on) in the real world. At each place, an enigma is revealed. To resolve it, they will need to collaborate together, each bringing their specific skills and knowledge to solve the mystery together.
This game aims to make healthcare providers realize how they are complementary in the patient healthcare pathways. It highlights that working together is not limited to adding skills but involves creating synergies to achieve complex tasks.
This program has resulted in a scientific publication:
To improve learning autonomy, a set of e-learning modules has been developed for students in health professions (pharmacy, medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, etc.). To maintain student attention, a multichannel approach has been implemented, including text reading, video watching, audio listening, and interactive activities. These e-learning modules aim to develop interprofessional skills.
With the TeamSTEPPS methodology, students develop 5 skill sets:
The activity of shadowing involves following an experienced healthcare provider. It means that the student observes how professionals behave in their current practice. This helps the student to understand the reality of their future professional interactions.
Two types of shadowing are conducted. The first consists of observing other healthcare providers. This contributes to the development of interprofessional skills by identifying the roles, social codes, organizations, and constraints of other healthcare providers' practices. Students can shadow medical doctors in cities or hospitals, nurses working in hospitals or in private practice, physiotherapists, radiologists, and any other healthcare provider in the healthcare system. These shadowing experiences contribute to promoting better communication between healthcare providers.
The second type of shadowing involves following patients. After obtaining their informed consent, students are allowed to follow them in pharmacies. This contributes to a better understanding of the patient's healthcare pathway, the constraints of disease management, and the social impacts of diseases. These shadowing experiences contribute to promoting better communication with patients.
Two types of simulations are proposed. First, within the interprofessional framework, they aim to bring together students from different educational backgrounds, such as pharmacy, medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, and imaging. These students collaborate on clinical cases to understand the role of each healthcare provider and their complementarity in addressing patients' needs.
The second type of simulation focuses on pharmacy students. In a virtual pharmacy setting, they simulate pharmaceutical interviews. Through video and audio recordings, they analyze their communicative skills, identifying gaps and potential areas for improvement. This serves as initial training before involving pharmacy students in real pharmacies with patients.
Implementation science involves applying research results to current practice. It is an essential part of evidence-based medicine, which emphasizes the importance of scientific literature. The ability to distinguish relevant articles from those that are not is a crucial skill. Its relevance is reinforced by a context where fake news dissemination is facilitated and where Artificial Intelligence may mimic serious content. CAL enables healthcare providers to update their knowledge and adjust their practice according to patients' needs.
As the added value of healthcare providers is to provide accurate information to patients, it enables patients to make informed decisions. By developing CAL skills, pharmacists can help patients establish a direct (or indirect) link with scientific information. They can also guide their patients in adopting a critical approach when encountering potentially false information.