Pilot project on use of social simulation to improve multidisciplinary medical education on health-related social needs

Abstract

Background:  Competence in system-based practice in medical education must include training on functioning as an interprofessional team member to address health-related social needs (HRSN). This pilot targets the existing gap on teaching residents how to leverage interprofessional expertise and larger context of HRSN in patient care.This pilot applied the principles of social simulation to teach residents how to work with interprofessional partners to effectively address patients’ HRSN. Methods: We developed simulation cases on HRSN commonly encountered in our Emergency Department. A 9-item instrument using a Likert 5-level scale assessed participants’ knowledge and skills on HRSN before and after the simulation implemented in 2021. Unmatched data largely from missing ID in responses were omitted. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to assess for significant changes pre- and post-intervention. Results: Thirty-three of forty eligible Emergency Medicine (EM) residents (82.5%) participated in the study. Eighteen of thirty-three participants (response rate 54.5%) were included when matching data based on ID. We found significant differences in self-reported ability to identify patients’ HRSN (p=.0014), differentiate between the roles of interdisciplinary team members (p=.0007), and ability to identify hospital resources patients could be referred to (p=.0018). There was no difference in self-reported sense of empowerment in response to perceived ability in addressing a patient’s HRSN. Conclusions: Findings from this pilot suggest that social simulation can be an effective tool for teaching residents how to function in interprofessional teams and navigate the dynamic larger healthcare context of social determinants of health (SDOH) in addressing a patient’s HRSN. Competence in system-based practice in multidisciplinary medical education must include training on functioning as an interprofessional team member to address SDOH. This pilot targets the existing gap in teaching residents how to leverage interprofessional expertise and the larger context of SDOH in patient care.