Essentials of Ambulatory Care: An Interprofessional Workshop to Promote Core Skills and Values in Team-based Outpatient Care

Introduction: Team-based, interprofessional approaches to outpatient care are critical to high-quality patient care. However, few specific educational interventions promoting these skills in graduate level health care trainees have been described to date.

Methods: University of Minnesota faculty from the Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Nursing created an interprofessional workshop experience exploring core concepts in outpatient care for graduate level trainees in pediatrics, family medicine, medicine-pediatrics, internal medicine, graduate-level nursing, and pharmacy. We focused on four key content areas: teamwork, systems thinking, the patient-centered health care home, and patient-centered communication. The workshop included brief didactics, role-plays, team-based experiences, and interactive skill practice. Participants completed an end-of-day survey reflecting on knowledge and attitude.

Results: From 2014-2017, nine workshops reached 305 trainees. Survey results from the 2015-2016 academic year are representative of our overall results and revealed that learners found the content high yield, and that they valued the opportunity to learn with their interprofessional colleagues. Improvements in perceived knowledge were noted in all domains. Trainees also reported increased skills, with 81% reporting both increased confidence in working within the interprofessional team, and change in attitude, and 90% reporting increased interest in working with their interprofessional colleagues after the workshop.

Discussion: Creating an opportunity for postgraduate level trainees from a variety of disciplines and professions to convene and focus on interprofessional team-based skills can fill a gap in interprofessional learning as they enter practice. Trainees were able to draw on their everyday experiences and find common ground with their interprofessional colleagues.