Columbus Publishers

International Journal of Nursing and Health Care Science

Volume 01: Issue 14

Boyce PS, et al.

## Review Article

# CUNY Health & Human Service Programs Simulated Interprofessional Education Pilot

## Patricia Patricia Simino Boyce, PhD, Susan Riekert MSN, RN, COS-C2, Nicole Saint-Louis, DSW, LCSW, Yasmine J. Awais, MPhil, LCAT

Department of Nursing, CUNY’s University, New York, USA

#Corresponding author: author: Patricia Boyce, PHD, RN, University Dean for Health and Human Services, Department of Nursing, CUNY’s University, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York 10016, USA

How to cite this article: to cite this article: Boyce PS, Riekert S, Saint-Louis N, et al. (2021) CUNY Health & Human Service Programs Simulated Interprofessional Education Pilot. Int J Nurs & Healt Car Scie 01(14): 2021-78.

### Submission Date:

31 July, 2021; Accepted Date: 22 September, 2021; Published Online: 29 September, 2021

## Executive Summary

Healthcare teams have become increasingly complex in response to advances in medicine and practice delivery models, with each member of the team performing a unique yet complementary role in the provision of care. However, certain attributes and skills, such as effective communication and team coordination need to be acquired by each team member to complement each other’s roles and improve the quality of care. Interprofessional Education (IPE) occurs when two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes [1]. The City University of New York (CUNY) is uniquely positioned to lead a robust IPE initiative, as the largest urban public university in the nation, with close to 50,000 students enrolled in 350+ Health and Human Service (HHS) degree and credit bearing certificate programs in 60 disciplines across 25 campuses, graduating thousands of professionals entering practice in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area each year. Thus, CUNY has a distinctive opportunity to contribute to team-based care by engaging HHS students in a myriad of IPE experiences to prepare them for successful participation in collaborative practice, ultimately improving care delivery and population health.

In winter 2020, prior to the official onset of COVID-19, the CUNY University Dean for Health & Human Services began planning a university-wide effort to integrate IPE into professional training programs. In response to COVID-19 and our newly adopted mode of distance learning education, CUNY immediately pivoted the design and initiation of this new initiative to virtually simulated IPE (Sim-IPE) learning events using in-patient, community-based and public health case scenarios designed in the context of COVID-19. With CUNY’s broad and diverse educational programs in health professions education (at the Associate, Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral levels), and joint operation with New York University Langone Health of NYSIM - one of the leading health science simulation education centers in the nation - a unique opportunity existed to enhance CUNY’s HHS professional training by offering an accessible and inclusive approach to engage faculty and students across the university in a fall 2020 CUNY HHS Sim-IPE Pilot program. Secondary objectives of the Pilot were to address skills training in a virtual environment and prepare students for evolving practice in response to the impact of COVID-19.

As a result of the crisis, the use of technology created an opportunity to include broader representation across disciplines and campuses that would not have been able to participate if sessions were designed as in- person events at NYSIM or individual campus settings. In addition, these virtual IPE experiences were used by several programs to replace or augment limited access to practice settings during COVID-19 and provide meaningful professional and clinical learning experiences for students. This initiative also aligned with CUNY’s mission for equitable and accessible higher education and the joining of HHS disciplines across CUNY campuses to improve student learning experiences, while demonstrating the importance of teamwork and collaborative practice for 640 students, representing eight HHS disciplines in 15 programs across nine colleges. An extensive evaluation of the initiative was conducted, including qualitative and quantitative assessments of students, faculty, facilitators, and team performance for 28 two-hour IPE sessions during the Pilot. This paper provides an overview of the essential