Better together: Interprofessional Education in Medication Safety

Background: The importance of actively working with other professionals, as part of a single team, is well embedded in discussions relating to effective healthcare. The need for effective teamwork specifically in relation to patient safety is also widely acknowledged; however healthcare has traditionally been poor at building teams and professional groups tend to function semi-autonomously and autocratically.1<br/>Objective: This study aims to gain the views and experiences of students from nursing, pharmacy and medicine involved in an interprofessional workshop in medication safety.<br/>Setting and methods: Interprofessional workshops involving students from nursing, pharmacy and medicine were delivered using case studies involving medication incidents. Focus groups were used to investigate participant’s views and experiences of the workshop. <br/>Results: Focus groups were completed with 22 students. Five main themes were identified from the focus group data relating to medication safety; these were increasing confidence, insight into roles, improving skills, culture of responsibility and application to future practice.<br/>Conclusions: This study represents a model for delivery of training that has demonstrated improvement in the students’ attitudes towards team working and is a first step towards introducing team working into the medication safety program. The programme continues to run using live and virtual workshops. <br/><br/>1. Leape LL. A systems analysis approach to medical error. J Clin Eval Clin Pract. 1997. 3, 3, 213-222.<br/>