Is Virtual Interprofessional Education Effective?: Three Years' Outcomes from Nine Health Professional Programs' Experience.

Aims: During the pandemic, health professional programs shifted to virtually deliver the various components of their curricula including interprofessional education (IPE) offerings. An urban public College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences moved its interprofessional pain management workshop to virtual delivery. This workshop focused on preparing its participants to embrace the interprofessional competencies of roles/responsibilities, ethics/values, effective communication, teamwork, and the core concepts of safe and equitable pain treatment to address the complex needs of patients in pain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of this virtual interprofessional pain management workshop over multiple years.

Methods: Professional students from medical laboratory science, nurse anesthesia, occupational therapy, pathologists' assistant, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant, radiologic technology, and radiation therapy technology programs (n=1,047) were included. The workshop consisted of a presentation reviewing the roles and responsibilities of represented professions in pain management, a small group case-based activity, and an interprofessional panel of experts' discussion of pain management. To achieve the purpose of this study, the impact of the interprofessional education workshop on the students' learning was captured via multiple assessment tools including changes in 1) knowledge acquisition, 2) interprofessional behaviors and skills (Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Survey, ICCAS), and 3) post-workshop achievement of learning objectives and evaluation of workshop activities.

Results: It was found that a virtual interprofessional pain management workshop was consistently effective in enhancing health professional students' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions related to collaborative pain management. Participants showed a statistically significant improvement in knowledge about other professions from pre- to post-workshop for the entire group. Significant improvements were observed across all measured ICCAS subscales, including communication, collaboration, roles and responsibilities, patient-centered care, and conflict management/team functioning. Overall, participants perceived significant improvements in the learning objectives for within group comparisons. Notably, the virtual delivery format resulted in sustainable gains over 3 years, highlighting the potential of virtual IPE to overcome logistical barriers and provide an accessible and effective platform for interprofessional learning.

Conclusion: A virtual interprofessional workshop was effective in enhancing students' knowledge and skills in collaborative pain management.