Teaching Interprofessional Practice Skills by “Saving Humanity”: An Innovative IPE Curricular Method Using a Cooperative Strategy Board Game

Abstract

Purpose: To provide allied health students with an innovative learning experience that promotes the values and skills needed for interprofessional practice. Background: Increasingly, team-based interprofessional collaboration is the central model of practice for health disciplines. Traditional education models often train students to become individually competent but not team competent. Learning competencies that promote team competency include the development of shared values, knowledge of roles, interprofessional communication techniques, and teamwork skills. Description of Intervention: Students from five health disciplines were placed on interprofessional teams. Students completed two pre and post-test measures, the Attitudes Towards Health Care Teams Scale and the Team Skills Scale. Each team had to cure four global pandemics in the cooperative strategy board game, Pandemic. Students played the game twice, with tighter constraints in the second game. After each game, students completed the Team Fitness Tool and debriefed about their strategies. Students discussed the parallels between playing Pandemic and interprofessional practice values and skills. Results: Paired t-tests from the thirty-six students indicated statistically significant increases in mean post-test scores. Students reported more favorable attitudes toward team-based health care practice as well as increased aptitudes to work on such teams. Students rated their teams as being significantly more competent and effective after the second game compared to the first attempt. Qualitative themes included the importance of understanding their own roles as well as the roles of others, valuing allied health professionals, engaging in open communication, and patient-centered care. Conclusion: The use of Pandemic as a teaching tool for promoting interprofessional education was clearly demonstrated by this intervention. Students articulated a direct link between playing the game and serving on an interprofessional health care team. Relevance to Interprofessional Education and Practice: This game can be beneficial in both interprofessional education and professional health care settings to promote team competency. Learning Objectives: 1. Participants will learn the value of using cooperative strategy board games in both interprofessional education and practice settings. 2. Participants will be able to articulate why team-based competence is equally, if not more, important to individual competence. 3. Participants will learn how to set up and play the cooperative strategy board game Pandemic. 4. Participants will be able to identify central questions to use during debrief discussions with students and/or colleagues following game play. 5. Participants will be able to identify quantitative measures for assessing changes in interprofessional practice values and skills.