Interprofessional education workshop for prescription drug monitoring programs

In current health care practice, substance misuse is a continuing concern. To monitor controlled substances, 49 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam have each implemented a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). Importantly, future providers who prescribe and dispense controlled substances need to appropriately use these valuable resources.

In the year following an interprofessional education (IPE) course for ~700 first-year health profession students on fundamentals of interprofessional collaboration,¹ medical and pharmacy students engaged together in a more complex IPE workshop/session. Two-hundred-seventy second-year students (176 medical students and 94 pharmacy students) participated in a 2-hour team-based learning workshop that focused on one state's PDMP (Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System; OARRS) within a broader discussion of substance use. Pharmacy students had just completed their pain and psychiatric therapeutic modules including an OARRS lecture 5 months prior, while medical students had their similar therapeutic modules 1 year prior. For class preparation, all students were provided Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resource handouts about opioids, Ohio opioid prescribing guidelines, and a 30-minute OARRS lecture. For teams, students were divided into teams of five medical and three pharmacy students. Due to social distancing guidelines at the time, some team members were present physically with others participating virtually via Microsoft Teams. At the start of the session, students completed individual then team quizzes over preparatory material. The individual quiz used a learning management system, while the team quiz used a scratch-off card that provided immediate feedback of answers. After quizzes, two application-based cases were discussed by teams followed by an instructor facilitated discussion among all teams for 90 minutes. Facilitators were one faculty pharmacist with background knowledge of OARRS, practical teaching and medication dispensing experience, along with one faculty physician with controlled substance prescribing and teaching experiences; both instructors had other IPE teaching experience. Cases included questions that forced teams to use OARRS Academy (an educational platform developed by the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy that imitates OARRS) in their decision-making processes for practical application.

From this initial workshop, we first uncovered students' appreciation for collaborating interprofessionally. This was the most frequent comment from post-workshop evaluations. Second, with limited quiz reliability (10-items; Cronbach's α = 0.4), individual quiz-scores from pharmacy and medicine were not different [PharmD mean = 7.4, MD mean = 7.0. p = 0.4), suggesting that students from both programmes were well-matched for knowledge/ability, and helpful collaboration ensued. The mean score on the team quizzes was 10. Third (also from student workshop evaluations), with teams partly in-person or virtual/videoconferencing, students suggested all teammates be in-person and in smaller teams for the next workshop iteration to improve team dynamics during case discussions. Fourth, assessing the technology capabilities for large groups within educational platforms is crucial. This was the first large event utilising OARRS Academy (according to communications with the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy). The single login information provided was unable to handle simultaneous logins from all teams. Overall, students were pleased with this practical application of learning and collaborating with another profession, as they will experience in the future as health care providers.