Virtual Interprofessional Telehealth Education: A Mixed Methods Evaluation (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic increased the demand for expedited, flexible virtual care and necessitated an immediate shift from in-person to online education. Faculty rapidly transitioned core in-person concepts to virtual learning, with minimal guidance and without effective evaluation of content delivery in a virtual environment. OBJECTIVE Despite the increased need for virtual training sessions, a lack of knowledge exists about how to effectively train and assess learners within a cohesive virtual medical team. Although core competencies have been developed for telehealth and interprofessional education, the impacts of early virtual interprofessional education (IPE) have not been well defined. The objective of our study was to explore how early virtual interprofessional education affects collaboration among healthcare students, skills development with remote clinical care, and perception of telehealth. METHODS An interdisciplinary course was implemented consisting of 28 students from nursing, medical, occupational/physical therapy, or social work backgrounds. The course consisted of asynchronous and synchronous activities, meeting twice a week for four weeks. Activities included longitudinal telehealth for standardized patient interactions, group discussion, and patient feedback. After the course, a self-survey was conducted to assess student learning. RESULTS Survey results indicated an increase in interdisciplinary understanding and confidence within telehealth settings. Students from medical, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and social work backgrounds all had a significant increase in familiarity with other professions’ role in telehealth settings (p