Development and Evaluation of an Interprofessional Collaborative Case Conference Series in Primary Care

Abstract Introduction Many health professions training programs provide inadequate opportunities for trainees to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for interprofessional collaboration (IPC). To address this gap, we created an interprofessional collaborative case conference (CCC) series that provides opportunities for participants from multiple professions to learn with, from, and about each other through discussion of real patient cases and actionable strategies for care plans. Methods This publication describes a monthly hour-long CCC in which trainees from a variety of health professions facilitate and discuss medically and psychosocially complex patients from one trainee's primary care panel with the goal of developing an improved care plan for the patient. The CCC includes upwards of 20 participants from wide-ranging backgrounds and allows face-to-face, interactive brainstorming of strategies and solutions that can ultimately be incorporated into a care plan in real time. The trainee facilitator works closely with a faculty mentor to prepare and execute the CCC, including selecting an appropriate patient, identifying clear learning objectives, inviting discussants involved in the patient's care or with relevant expertise, writing up the case and discussion questions, summarizing two pertinent articles from the literature, and creating a facilitation plan to encourage participation and collaboration among all participants. The trainee also writes a postconference care plan detailing innovative ideas for the patient's care that arose during the CCC and completes a 3-month update on the status of the proposed interventions. Included herein are a comprehensive Instructor's Guide with documents and sample templates for conference preparation and follow-up. Results We used conference evaluation forms and trainee check-ins with faculty mentors to evaluate the following components of the CCC: interprofessional trainee satisfaction with the organization, facilitation, educational value, and collaborative nature of the conference; interprofessional trainee self-assessment of knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to IPC; and participants' achievement of learning objectives based on observed behaviors during the CCC, documents generated for and after the conferences, and formative assessments by peers and faculty mentors. Conference ratings were very high across the board, with scores above 4 (on a 0-5 scale) for nearly all questions. In formal curricular feedback sessions held twice a year, trainees frequently requested more such interprofessional case-based learning sessions. The CCC also led to innovative developments in patients' treatment plans. Discussion The CCC series has proven to be an effective tool in developing primary care trainees' competence in IPC and has helped to foster a culture of IPC within our program. The IPC skills that trainees develop through the CCC are expected to translate into enhanced interprofessional skills in future clinical settings beyond our training program. The CCC has also had a positive impact on the individual patients discussed, through the generation of new multidisciplinary strategies in their care plans and the creation of lasting collaborations between their providers.