Physician Residents Shadowing a Certified WOC Nurse to Develop Interprofessional Competencies

<p>PURPOSE: The aim of this quality improvement (QI) project was to assess a shadowing experience with a certifi ed WOC </p> <p>nurse (CWOCN) on 4 interprofessional collaborative practice domains: interprofessional communication, role awareness and </p> <p>responsibilities, teams and teamwork, and values and ethics for interprofessional practice. </p> <p>PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Forty-nine physician residents in Family and Internal Medicine participated in this project set at </p> <p>a health system in Chicago, Illinois. </p> <p>APPROACH: Residents spent 16 hours shadowing a CWOCN and completed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative </p> <p>Competency Self-Assessment Tool (IPESAT) instrument pre- and postshadowing that measured 4 interprofessional education </p> <p>(IPE) domains: interprofessional communication, role awareness and responsibilities, teams and teamwork, and values and </p> <p>ethics for interprofessional practice. Paired t tests were performed to determine differences in IPESAT scores before and after </p> <p>the shadowing experience. </p> <p>OUTCOMES: Residents demonstrated signifi cant improvement in their overall knowledge of IPE ( P = .000) as well as knowledge </p> <p>within each of the 4 domains ( P = .000). After the shadowing experience, the overall ranking improved by 7.5%; the greatest gain </p> <p>(10.8%) occurred in the teamwork domain. </p> <p>IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: We found that even a comparatively brief shadowing experience with a CWOCN improved </p> <p>knowledge in IPE competencies. The shadowing experience is now permanently part of the Internal Medicine Residency program, </p> <p>and based on these IPE outcomes, other residency programs in our setting, such as the Rehabilitation and Family Medicine </p> <p>program, have increased their requests to shadow with the CWOCN. </p>