Presented By: Martin Schmidt, Des Moines University
Co-Authors: Cali Bills, Des Moines University
Andrew Mannisto, Des Moines University

Purpose 
Interprofessional education (IPE) is an essential element of health professions curricula that prepares graduates to function in collaborative healthcare teams. Development and scheduling of IPE events requires considerable effort as these sessions need to fit the participating programs' diverging curricula. The present study assesses if the learning outcomes of a small-group IPE activity justify such efforts. 

Methods 
A series of interactive case discussions illustrating the clinical and basic science aspects of inborn errors of metabolism was developed (termed "Scientific Knowledge Integrated in patient Presentations"; SKIPPs). Students of 3 health science programs - DO. DPM and PA - were combined into small groups to discuss and present clinical scenarios. Participants were surveyed about their confidence in teamworking skills, clinical reasoning, and ability to integrate clinical and basic science concepts. 

Results 
Non-parametric testing of pre/post survey scores shows significant confidence gains for students of all participating programs. The first iteration of the experiment (N=142) showed that mixed PA/DO groups have higher post-SKIPPs confidence scores in all 3 tested domains (teamworking, clinical reasoning and integration of sciences) than DO-only or DPM/DO groups. Free-text comments were overwhelmingly positive (83%, N=36) with the most frequent comment being that SKIPPs are excellent opportunities to apply classroom knowledge to clinical scenarios. 

Conclusion 
While the organization of SKIPPs posed significant logistical challenges originating from the different curricula of the participating programs, significant confidence gains and positive free-text comments of participants justify the efforts that went into planning and execution of the event. It is noteworthy that PA/DO interprofessional student groups had the best outcomes, suggesting that SKIPPs can be an effective tool for interprofessional education. Since the inter-group differences fell short of statistical significance, more iterations of the experiment are necessary to reach the predicted sample size of 600 enrollees for statistical power (80%, p=0.05).