Comparing Four Methods for Assessing Interprofessional Learning in a Practice Setting

Healthcare practitioners must be trained to collaborate in a dynamic environment where patients are complex and teams can change from day-to-day, but choosing the right measures to assess the effectiveness of interprofessional teamwork among learners is challenging. This study used measures representing four different perspectives to assess student teams in a practice setting where team composition varied each day. We tested the strength of the relationships between these measures, and we examined the impact of additional variables on each measure. Participants were students from different health professions at a single university and patients in a community-based wellness program. We sampled 100 wellness visits where an interprofessional student team met with a patient, and we assessed team effectiveness using student perceptions of their team, patient ratings, observer ratings, and faculty assessments of team healthcare plans for the patient. We calculated bivariate correlations between the four measures and used regression analyses to assess the impact of predictors including student, patient, and clinic/site characteristics, on each measure of team effectiveness. There were small but significant negative correlations between the assessments of faculty and observers (r = - 0.23), as well as between faculty and patients (r = - 0.14). Conversely, a small but significant positive correlation was found between the assessments of patients and observers (r = 0.15). Among the regression models, faculty and patient ratings of team effectiveness were more strongly related to the predictors measured (R-squared = 53.6% and 41.7%, respectively). Patient age and number of clinic visits, team size, and clinic site were significant factors for predicting team effectiveness across the two measures. Our findings provide evidence that different perspectives of team effectiveness measure different constructs. While all approaches have value, in IPE practice settings, team effectiveness should be evaluated with multiple measures to understand performance and identify opportunities for improvement. Teamwork in dynamic healthcare environments is complex, and simple measurement approaches may mischaracterize learning and clinical outcomes.