Assessing collaboration between family medicine residents and pharmacy residents during an interprofessional paired visit

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: As health care embraces an interprofessional team approach toward care delivery, examples quantifying team members’ collaboration in care delivery are limited. Our study objective was to determine the type of and satisfaction with collaboration that occurs between family medicine residents and pharmacy residents during an interprofessional paired visit. METHODS: For 1 half day a week for 10 months, residents were paired to see patients together and complete an evaluation tool. The tool asked participants to rank the contribution of each team member on medication-related patient care tasks and to evaluate the interprofessional pairs’ skills on four interprofessional competencies for collaborative practice (values and ethics for interprofessional practice, roles and responsibilities, interprofessional communication, and team and teamwork). Residents participated in focus groups 2 months after the conclusion of the paired visits, and responses were analyzed for common themes. RESULTS: There were 38 half days of paired visits over the 10 months. Shared contribution was found on all tasks, both for self-assessment and of the interprofessional partner. Resident evaluation of the pairs’ skills on four interprofessional competencies averaged in the 4 range of the scale (good skills, above average ability). Themes from the focus groups focused on provider experience, perceived impact on patient care, and considerations for ongoing use of paired visits. CONCLUSIONS: Participants of the interprofessional paired visits were able to identify mutual contributions to patient care tasks at the point of care. Focus groups identified potential benefits, impact on patient care, and areas for improvement of paired visits.