Developing Standardized Patient Clinical Simulations to Apply Concepts of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Interdisciplinary collaboration and interprofessional education (IPE) are essential for transforming health care. Students in nurse practitioner (NP) programs have limited exposure to IPE. Simulated clinical experiences, based on social learning theory, provide a safe and realistic environment to expose NP students to interdisciplinary collaboration as a step toward developing IPE. Faculty at a large university school of nursing developed a formative standardized patient experience to provide NP students with two opportunities to synthesize a patient assessment, to share patient problem-solving strategies, and to succinctly communicate with other health care professionals. This pilot project provided insight to better develop IPE and identified a growing interest to collaborate in future projects with faculty from other health care disciplines.