Student Poster

Welcome to the Riddle Room: Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating an Interprofessional Education and Teamwork Strategies Activity

Tuesday, August 20, 2019, 9:45 am - 11:15 am
Northstar Ballroom
Theme: Optimizing the Interprofessional Clinical Learning Environment

Background: Teamwork and interprofessional collaboration are paramount to preventing medical errors and improving patient safety alongside health outcomes. Interprofessional education (IPE) develops students’ skills in preparation for the clinical environment and collaborative practice. However, IPE activities have been described by some students as “irrelevant” or “unengaging” in post-evaluations. The aim is to design an IPE activity that can engage students and increase knowledge of interprofessional competencies for utilization in the clinical setting.



Design: A student-run group representing multiple medical and health professions developed an interactive IPE activity. This activity, centered around a Riddle Room, introduced roles and responsibilities of each profession, TeamSTEPPS�(R), and DISC behavioral styles. Participants collaborated through a series of riddles related to a clinical scenario about diabetes. Three major academic institutions with various medical and health professional students collaborated to implement this activity. The administration of pre and post activity surveys evaluated students’ knowledge of diabetes and teamwork strategies alongside attitudes towards IPE and collaboration in the healthcare setting.



Results: A retrospective analysis of the data used SAS software to implement a McNemar’s Test on paired pre/post survey responses. Of 742 participants of the Riddle Room, 603 students completed both pre and post knowledge and attitudes surveys. Across all students, there was a significant increase in knowledge gains (p