An experiential interdisciplinary quality improvement education initiative.
Seven learners, including 2 preventive medicine fellows, 2 family medicine residents, 1 internal medicine resident, and 2 master's-level nursing students participated in an experiential 4-week quality improvement rotation at a major academic medical center. Together they worked on a quality improvement project that resulted in enhanced medication reconciliation in a preventive medicine clinic. Learner knowledge measured on the QI Knowledge Application Tool increased from an average of 2.33 before the start of the rotation to 3.43 (P = .043) by the end of the rotation. At the conclusion, all learners said they were confident or very confident that they could make a change to improve health care in a local setting. Although this pilot supports the feasibility and potential benefits of interdisciplinary quality improvement education, further research is necessary to explore strategies to implement the same on a larger scale, and to examine the impact on patient outcomes.
Varkey
Prathibha
P
Division of Preventive and Occupational Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, MN 55905, USA. Varkey.prathibha@mayo.edu
Reller
M Katherine
MK
Smith
Alan
A
Ponto
Julie
J
Osborn
Michael
M
D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D014481:United States