Interprofessional education in US radiologic technologist programs: Results of a national survey

Interprofessional Education (IPE) prepares students to work in healthcare teams while promoting multidisciplinary learning. The Interprofessional Education Collaborative is a national organization committed to advancing interprofessional learning experiences and promoting team-based care. Previous studies of several allied health disciplines have explored faculty attitudes and beliefs about interprofessional education, but none have investigated program directors of radiologic sciences education programs. Because of their impact on radiologic sciences (technology) programs, it becomes necessary to analyze the attitudes and beliefs of program directors. To this end, this project investigated how program directors ranked the four IPE core competencies, how IPE is currently implemented in their program, and the differences between program directors who have implemented IPE in their curriculum and those that have not yet implemented IPE.

An online survey was distributed via email to 701 radiological science program directors of programs accredited by the JRCERT. The quantitative data was evaluated by crosstabulations, descriptive statistics, and Mann-Whitney U tests.

We found most program directors believe that IPE should not be a separate accreditation standard. The majority of program directors with over five years in academia had already implemented IPE in their curricula (n = 68, 91%). Program directors with 11-15 years in academia had the highest rate of IPE implementation (n = 22, 81.48%). Approximately half of the programs without IPE in their curriculum would like to see a greater emphasis on IPE in their programs (n = 36, 55.38%). Most program directors (n = 114, 80.90%) somewhat or strongly agreed that interprofessional education will increase the student's ability to understand problems. Less than half of respondents agreed that their program had the resources and personnel to teach IPE (n = 59, 43.3%). Program directors ranked the IPE competency Communication (n = 42, 32.60%) first, followed by Ethics (n = 39, 30.20%), Teams and Teamwork (n = 31, 24.00%), and Roles and Responsibilities (n = 17, 13.20%).

There is strong support from program directors for IPE to be implemented within radiological sciences programs. Radiologic Technology program directors reported active collaborations with other health-care related programs, similar to collaborations noted in previous research studies. Many program directors that had not yet implemented IPE reported investigating ways to incorporate an IPE activity into their curricula. However, barriers that can affect IPE implementation have been identified.