Abstract:

INTRODUCTION
Health care professionals educated in team-based settings demonstrate more collaborative behavior that leads to higher satisfaction and productivity (Howell, 2009), lower morbidity rates, fewer hospitalizations, and decreased costs (Wager et al., 2005). Only a few medical schools include team-based learning activities in their curriculum (Brashers, et al., 2001) and less than 20% of mentor coaches are from the medical field (Harvard Medical School, 2009). Although health care students receive – through their formal training – answers to questions originating from pre-determined and objective domains of knowledge, they do not receive enough guidance on finding answers to open-ended questions that are subjective in nature and are greatly situational (Lawton-Smith, 2007). This is especially true of situations where they have to work together with other health care professionals to solve problems with which they may be faced for the very first time. More specifically, health care professionals need to be well-prepared to deal with situations in which they treat patients as part of an interdisciplinary team (Fernandez et al., 2007).

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study is to use mentored coaching, as a teaching method in a simulated clinical setting, to promote interprofessional teamwork through collaborative behavior and develop leadership capacity in members of health care delivery team, with three specific goals:
1. increase quality of education;
2. instill diversity of thought and practice; and
3. develop teamwork, communications, and collaboration.

STUDY DESIGN
12 students were recruited from programs offered by the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at The George Washington University to form 3 teams. Each team, consisting of a student from the physician, registered nurse, physician assistant, and physical therapist programs, attended 3 workshops over a 2-month period. Workshops consisted of an: orientation segment; an interprofessional objective structured clinical examination segment with standardized patients; and a group coaching segment. Participants had the opportunity to attend individualized mentored coaching sessions. The Team-Assessment Inventory (Elledge & Phillips, 1994) was used to measure the pre and post program scores for the teams. Transcriptions of workshops and group coaching segments, faculty observation notes, participants' reflective essays, and participant focus group data were analyzed to determine program effectiveness.

FINDINGS
ANOVA results show a statistically significant (p< .05) increase between pre and post program scores for teams. Reflective essays and focus group comments suggest traditional training focuses on the clinical subject body - versus the whole person - and does not adequately prepare students for situations where: team-based health care has to be delivered in the presence of patients' families; things go wrong; and interprofessional role conflict is involved.

CONCLUSIONS
Integrating interprofessional education segments involving simulations and mentored coaching - as part of core health care curriculum - can be an effective way to enhance team-based health care delivery, leadership capacity, and professional development at the individual and group level.

Keywords:

Interprofessional, Education, Coaching, Simulation.