Fostering Effective Long-Term Relationships
Interprofessional education (IPE) is essential in modern healthcare, yet structured collaborations between oncology nurses (ONs), medical students (MSs), and pharmacy students (PharmDs) remain limited. Programs that introduce interdisciplinary collaboration often lack long-term mentorship, instead relying on onetime shadowing or short-term skills training (Blaževičienė et al., 2021; Monahan et al., 2018). FELT (Fostering Effective Long-Term Relationships) directly addresses this gap by creating sustained, structured mentorship spaces where interdisciplinary teams engage in three guided sessions supplemented by clinical shadowing experiences. Unlike prior efforts where students shadowed nurses in brief, one-day observational programs, FELT extends beyond passive learning by incorporating think-pair-share discussions, interactive case studies, and bi-directional mentorship, ensuring nurses, medical students, and pharmacists actively learn from each other over time. Evidence suggests that while short-term nurse-led training improves medical students’ confidence in clinical skills (Brian et al., 2007), true interprofessional collaboration requires ongoing engagement, which FELT uniquely provides.
PI: Dee Wu
Preparing for Interdisciplinary Service in Developmental Disability: Partnering with Individual/Family Leaders
Background: The Institute for Healthcare Improvement attests that the perspective, knowledge, and expertise of individuals with firsthand knowledge through their lived experiences is key to the success of work in maternal and child health. The Maternal and Child Health Bureau recognizes individual and families with lived experience as unique disciplines and states, “Families are often the best guides. They can tell us how to make the systems easier to navigate. Children and youth have better outcomes when their families engage with healthcare professionals.” The Oklahoma Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities program has for 26 years incorporated the voice of families and individuals with lived experience in preparing interdisciplinary leaders in health care. Learners across OUHSC are gaining knowledge and skills in interdisciplinary teaming, however those with lived experience are usually not involved in the delivery of this education. Purpose: Create a systematic way to bring the voices of individual and families with lived experience in developmental disability into the training and preparation of future interdisciplinary team members of the health care workforce. Method: 1) Develop and implement awareness level training and informational materials for OUHSC faculty on involvement of individuals and families with lived experience with developmental disability in the delivery of their educational topics. 2) Gather information on how faculty are currently involving families. 3) Pilot a program preparing individual and family leaders with lived experience, matching them with the specific needs of OUHSC faculty, and evaluating the impact of their involvement on learners across three colleges. Outcomes: Increased understanding by faculty across OUHSC Colleges on the role of individuals and families with lived experience in enhancing health/medical education. Increased consistency in the preparation of individuals and families for their role to improve consistency and meet the needs of the faculty for delivery of key educational points.
PI: Megan Roberts
Enhancing Interprofessional Collaboration in the ICU through Integration of the A-F Bundle into Student Education
The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) provides a unique learning environment due to its highly interprofessional nature, an aspect essential to providing complex & collaborative patient care. The ICU team includes physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists (RT), pharmacists, rehabilitation therapists, case managers, and other allied health professionals.
Leveraging the shared knowledge and expertise of such a diverse team to facilitate Interprofessional Education (IPE) can enhance learners’ ability to work effectively in teams, improve interprofessional communication, and foster an understanding of professional boundaries—skills essential within and beyond the ICU. The ICU Liberation Bundle (also known as the A-F Bundle) is a nationally recognized best-practice framework endorsed by major critical care societies in the United States. Evidence shows its implementation significantly reduces ICU readmissions, mortality, and the duration of delirium and coma. This project aims to integrate the A-F Bundle into ICU education through a structured interprofessional educational intervention. We propose a monthly 30-minute orientation session for medical, physician associate (PA), nursing, and RT students rotating in the ICU. Led by experienced physicians, nurses, and RT educators, sessions will provide an overview of the bundle, its benefits, and the challenges associated with implementation. Following this, we plan to conduct a programmatic evaluation of the educational intervention. Using
purposive sampling to ensure representation across all learner groups, we will collect data on learner feedback, knowledge, and behaviour change (based on Kirkpatrick's Model of Evaluation). Additionally, qualitative input collected from learners, educators, and ICU staff involved in patient care will identify barriers and facilitators in implementation, and inform a 'bottom up' approach in developing a roadmap for similar interventions in the future. By leveraging IPE competencies to introduce this bundle for students, we hope to contribute to workforce development and add to the existing scholarship on implementing IPE interventions in the ICU setting.
PI: Tony Abdo
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence in Behavioral Health and Medicine
This project aims to convene an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students to address the educational needs of students, and healthcare professionals use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Secondly, leverage AI’s potential to enhance provider communication and teamwork, improving patient behavioral health outcomes across disciplines and healthcare delivery platforms. The team will design a comprehensive semester-long curriculum to equip healthcare providers with foundational and applied knowledge of AI in healthcare, focused on the role AI can play in addressing the identification, prevention, and treatment of behavioral health challenges. Third, we will develop a hybrid delivery model for the curriculum and identify real-world behavioral health and AI scenarios for in-depth discussion. Fifth, the team will design individual and small group projects to explore the integration of AI in improving teamwork and communication in behavioral health care. The team will begin by first developing the outline and content for the curriculum, focusing on the intersection of AI and behavioral health in healthcare. From this outline, four to five core modules will be selected for full development and delivery as part of a pilot short course. Each chosen module will include: (1) targeted content on AI applications in behavioral health care; (2) structured group discussions; (3) individual and small group exercises addressing the use of AI to improve communication and collaboration on behavioral health. Feedback and data from participants in the pilot short course will be used to accomplish the team’s long-term goal of securing funding from the NIH Research Education Program (R25) or other medical education funding sources. This initiative directly supports the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Core Competencies, fostering collaboration, communication, and care coordination across healthcare teams. The project’s deliverables align with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Strategic Plan, contributing to its goals and pillars.
PI: Michael Brand
Development and delivery of a tailored nutrition workshop on mealtime challenges for caregivers of people living with dementia
Unpaid caregivers are responsible for over 80% of elder care in the US, with nearly half caring for people living with dementia (PLWD). Caregivers of PLWD experience significant burden related to mealtime and feeding challenges. In particular, they report lacking resources and support regarding how to provide adequate nutrition to their care recipients. To address this gap, we propose the development of a tailored nutrition workshop to address mealtime challenges of caregivers of PLWD. The proposed project will be divided in two stages: (1) individualized interviews with unpaid caregivers to gather insights into their experiences, challenges, and perceptions related to feeding activities; and (2) an in-person workshop addressing their specific concerns as informed by the first-stage interviews. The workshop will combine lecture sessions with practical demonstrations of recipe modifications. Students from Nutritional Sciences, Occupational Therapy, Nursing, and Basic Sciences will collaborate to develop and deliver the project, promoting interprofessional learning and communication. Through this collaboration, students will gain practical experience in conducting interviews, developing educational content, and working effectively within interdisciplinary teams. We will collect data using validated methods to measure the impact and effectiveness of the intervention for both students and caregivers. If successful, this project can be expanded and serve as a tool for interprofessional education and community engagement.
PI: Keith Kleszynski
Stakeholders' perceptions of teamwork and their correlation to a client-centered outcome measure
There is a gap in the representation of allied health participation in interprofessional (IP) education publications and a gap in allied health IP research studying the patient experience of IP clinical interventions [1]. The Unity Clinic at Keys (UaK) is a student-led outpatient clinic that combines primary and rehabilitative care. The UaK uses a well-developed teamwork design that provides onboarding education to facilitators and students, and a protocol that is consistent in the various Unity Clinic experiences promoting student-led teamwork development while providing IP client care where the patient is the core of the team. The research team will investigate the alignment of the patient perception of teamwork with that of the healthcare providers using a quasi-experimental, convenience sample, survey design to determine if the client perception of the level of teamwork as reported in the Patient’s Insights and Views Observing Teams (PIVOT) correlates with the student and facilitator perceptions reported in the Jefferson Teamwork Observation Guide (JTOG). This project aims to provide more evidence supporting that the patient experience is improved with strong IP teamwork. Further, this project can be a foundation for a larger study comparing teamwork perceptions and patient healthcare outcomes.
PI: Jennifer Tetnowski
Interprofessional Student Delivered Diabetes Education
The purpose of this project is to remove barriers and increase access to diabetes self-management education (DSME) for low-income and uninsured Hispanic patients. Utilization of bilingual interprofessional student teams is a cost-effective and sustainable intervention to provide patients with basic DSME while facilitating student teamwork in a non-traditional learning environment. The student teams will be trained and coached by APRN clinicians and faculty. This project was implemented as proof of concept with seven patient participants in the fall of 2022 as part of a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project. The project will measure pre and post-intervention patient perceived diabetes management self-efficacy, student diabetes knowledge, and student teamwork, as well as biometric data initially and if available following intervention for glycemic, weight, and blood pressure improvements. DSME is an evidence-based intervention shown to improve outcomes in patients with diabetes. Access to traditional DSME is limited for those without health insurance or funds to pay for these services out-of-pocket. Language is another barrier to access as this population is primarily Spanish speaking. Spanish-speaking student delivered diabetes education can overcome this barrier. Currently, there are no known DSME programs in Oklahoma offered in Spanish for free. Oklahoma has higher than national average of diabetes prevalence and the fifth highest age-adjusted diabetes mortality rate in the US (Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, 2020). Diabetes prevalence is higher in Hispanic adults compared to white and Asian adults (United Health Foundation, 2021) and Hispanic adults are more likely to experience diabetes related complications. Hispanic adults have the highest uninsured rates in Oklahoma. Diabetes prevalence is highest in the US among adults with family income below the federal poverty level (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). This project prepares future interprofessional providers to collaboratively approach care for patients with diabetes.
PI: Kacy Aderhold