Interprofessional teamwork skills as predictors of clinical outcomes in a simulated healthcare setting

Teaching interprofessional (IP) teamwork skills is a goal of interprofessional education. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between IP teamwork skills, attitudes and clinical outcomes in a simulated clinical setting.

One hundred-twenty health professions students (medicine, pharmacy, physician assistant) worked in interprofessional teams to manage a "patient" in a health care simulation setting. Students completed the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) attitudinal survey instrument. Students' responses were averaged by team to create an IEPS attitudes score. Teamwork skills for each team were rated by trained observers using a checklist to calculate a teamwork score (TWS). Clinical outcome scores (COS) were determined by summation of completed clinical tasks performed by the team based on an expert developed checklist. Regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship of IEPS and TWS with COS.

IEPS score was not a significant predictor of COS (p=0.054), but TWS was a significant predictor (p<0.001) of COS. Results suggest that in a simulated clinical setting, students' interprofessional teamwork skills are significant predictors of positive clinical outcomes.

Interprofessional curricular models that produce effective teamwork skills can improve student performance in clinical environments and likely improve teamwork practice to positively affect patient care outcomes.