Development of a project for interprofessional collaboration between medical and pharmacy students to improve medication safety in polypharmacy (PILLE)

Aim: Interprofessional collaboration is particularly relevant to patient safety in outpatient care with polypharmacy. The educational project "PILLE" is meant to give medical and pharmacy students an understand-ing of the roles and competencies needed for cooperation in the provi-sion of healthcare and to enable interprofessional learning.Method: The curriculum is aimed at pharmacy and medical students and was developed in six steps according to the Kern cycle. It is com-prised of an interprofessional seminar, a joint practical training in a simulated pharmacy, and a tandem job shadowing at a primary care practice. The project was implemented in three stages due to the pandemic: The interprofessional online seminar based on the ICAP model and the di-gital inverted classroom was held in the 2020 winter semester; the in-terprofessional practical training was added in the 2021 summer semester; and the interprofessional tandem job shadowing at a primary care practice in the 2021 winter semester. Attitudes toward interprofessional learning, among other things, was measured in the evaluation using the SPICE-2D questionnaire (Student Perceptions of Physician-Pharmacist Interprofessional Clinical Educa-tion).Results: In the first three semesters, a total of 105 students (46 phar-macy, 59 medicine) participated in the project, of which 78 participated in the evaluation (74% response rate). The students stated, in particular, that they had learned about the competencies and roles of the other profession and desired additional and more specific preparatory mater-ials for the course sessions. The SPICE-2D questionnaire showed high values for both groups of students already in the pre-survey and these increased further as a result of the project.Conclusion: Joint case-based learning could be implemented under the conditions imposed by the pandemic. Online teaching is a low-threshold means to enable interprofessional exchange.