The Development of an Interprofessional Mini-Fellowship Preceptor Program

Background:
Clinical environments require providers to work within interprofessional teams to provide and improve clinical care. Future health care providers need to understand interprofessional (IPE) teamwork and quality improvement (QI), which are requirements of accreditation [1,2]. Clinical preceptors help students to implement clinically what they have learned in the classroom [3]. Preceptors utilize knowledge and educational strategies [4] in IPE [5] and QI [6] to guide their students’ clinical experiences.

To address the need, the faculty aimed to: 1.) create and deliver a formal preceptor development program (PDP) using an interprofessional approach, and 2.) use quality improvement as a thread throughout the program to facilitate clinical and educational improvement.

Design: An interprofessional team of faculty created a program consisting of three face to face sessions with assignments between sessions. Course participants were current preceptors of health care students from three professions, who learned with and from each other about their various disciplines and practices. Preceptors studied QI processes, educational principles, population health, cultural competence, and teamwork. Program evaluation used pre and post surveys measuring preceptors’ knowledge and self-efficacy.

Results:
Participants in the PDP exhibited sizeable and highly significant gains in self-efficacy about QI project implementation and educational techniques. However, measured knowledge about quality improvement techniques and project implementation exhibited non-statistically significant gains, likely because these selected early cohorts started with relatively high baseline knowledge of these topics.

Conclusion:
The PDP was created to address the need for preceptors to understand quality improvement and educational strategies. Using an interprofessional approach for design and delivery, the program was able to demonstrate increased self-efficacy in both areas.

Reflections:
The program continues to be well received and highly recommended by participants. It takes a lot of innovation and creativity to design a program that will meet the needs of a diverse group. Having an interprofessional faculty team designing this program allows for diverse ideas and perspectives on preceptor training which enhances participation and relevancy.

Funding:
The work was funded by HRSA Primary Care Training and Enhancement Program. Number: TOBHP29992, Title: Transforming Health Care through Enhanced Clinical Team Training (THCECTT), Organization: Duke University.