Interprofessional Innovations- Enhancing Legal & Ethical Knowledge through a Simulated Healthcare Case

Concurrent Session 4

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

This presentation will dive into interprofessional education in a blended learning environment.  Interprofessional education enhances collaboration among students in different educational programs.  The presentation will provide a look into a law & ethics group project from an interprofessional healthcare course of nurses, health information management and health services administration students.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Rachel Ellison , University of Louisiana - Lafayette

Rachel Ellison is currently an Assistant Professor in the department of Allied Health at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Lafayette, Louisiana. She is the Program Coordinator of the Health Services Administration program and her focus lies in the areas of health policy, healthcare leadership, and healthcare finance. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Health Care Systems Administration from Ferris State University, a Master of Science in Health Care Management from Kaplan University and a PhD in Human Services from Capella University.

Co-presenter: Marissa Lajaunie, University of Louisiana - Lafayette

Extended Abstract

Interprofessional education enhances collaboration for students in the classroom setting as well as carrying the skills, values and knowledge they learned into their future careers.  This presentation will explore interprofessional education in the blended learning environment.

A blended legal and ethical healthcare course comprised of undergraduate nursing, health information management and health services administration students was the first course of its kind in the College of Nursing and Allied Health Professions.  To ensure the students were engaged, a group project was assigned.  Students were divided into groups to ensure students from each discipline were in every group.  The project consisted of many layers including, a discussion board forum, voice thread presentation and a live court case debate.  Each group was given an ethical law case such as, physician assisted suicide, religious healthcare beliefs, abortion cases, etc. Students in every group were assigned to the defense or prosecution and were required to research their stance on the court case.  The largest part of the group project was the in-class court case debate.  Evidence suggests that interprofessional education has a positive impact on learners and a positive change on perceptions and attitudes towards others.  During the court case, students had to work very closely together to ensure their defense and prosecution had relevance and facts.  Even though this course was blended, the students were continuously engaged with one another in and outside of the classroom.

Interprofessional education is growing in many disciplines.  Those in higher education and in professional settings can link the legal and ethical course and assignment to many other disciplines and fields. The group project presented can easily be manipulated to any discipline.

Our Discovery Session presentation will be highly interactive. Attendees will have access to view the videos of the court case debates, voicethread presentations, summaries of the law cases used, and the grading rubric for the group project. Samples of discussion forum posts will be available as well. As presenters, our goal is to inspire attendees to take a group assignment from a blended, interprofessional course and make it their own, regardless of their discipline.