Interprofessional Education: Nurse Practitioner and Pharmacy Students Learning Together

Interprofessional education (IPE) is a worldwide movement in the health professions. The World Health Organization’s definition of IPE is “when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” (2010). To that end, a university in the Southeast has developed a project for nurse practitioner and pharmacy students to learn from and with each other in an effort to improve patient care as future practicing professionals.

Through the IPE project, the following research question is evaluated: Is there a significant difference in students’ thoughts about IPE among those who have designed IPE experiences compared with those who do not have these experiences? The project/study is being conducted in order to explore ways that students think about IPE during the education process. This will in turn help faculty to assess current IPE experiences as well as plan for future IPE experiences. The research question is answered through pre and post surveys of participating groups and well as an intended control group.

Over the course of the project, periodic interactions take place between the nurse practitioner and pharmacy students during a 20 month timeframe until they graduate. Initial interaction between the students involves a meet-and-greet session on the university campus; however the remaining interactions take place through online discussion board assignments. These interactions involve aspects of medications and other issues concerning patient care.

This presentation will outline the IPE project described above involving nurse practitioner students and pharmacy students. Examples of the surveys, results, interactions, and assignments will be provided. The objective of this presentation will be to provide nurse practitioner educators with evidence and ideas related to IPE projects and experiences that can be implemented in graduate curriculums.