Nursing and bioengineering students team up.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) describes interprofessional partnerships (Domain 6 in The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education) as intentional collaboration across professions as well as among care team members, patients, families, communities, and other stakeholders to optimize care, enhance the healthcare experience, and strengthen outcomes. Domain 6 includes effective communication, team dynamics, role knowledge sharing, and development of mutual respect. Strengthening patient outcomes requires the ability to apply team dynamics and effectively collaborate. Ultimately, Domain 6 helps undergraduate nurses prepare to contribute to an interprofessional healthcare team.
AACN’s goals for preparing nurses for interprofessional practice align with the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) 2023
established core competencies. IPEC envisions that learning interprofessional skills begins in undergraduate healthcare profession education and includes opportunities for engagement in interactive learning with those outside of one’s profession. IPEC’s core interprofessional practice competencies include values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, interprofessional communication, and teams and teamwork. (See What the literature says.)
What the literature says
The literature points to interprofessional collaboration as fostering a positive learning environment. Song and Nam measured the importance of interprofessional education through a cross-sectional design that sampled undergraduate nursing and medical students. The study results showed that both groups wanted to increase interprofessional collaboration to ensure comprehensive patient care. However, Song and Nam noted that incorporating interprofessional collaboration into healthcare profession education may prove challenging due to factors that affect developing interprofessional relationships within a university. These factors include individual personality, life experience, culture, conscientiousness, openness, congruence, and flexibility of each school’s curriculum.
Karagory and Hountz completed a qualitative analysis of surveys following an interdisciplinary project in which mechanical engineering and nursing students worked collaboratively to create a more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable transfer device. Results highlighted three themes pertinent to this learning experience: personal transition to leadership, the development of effective interdisciplinary teamwork relationships, and the opportunity to present the project to the international community. This study demonstrated support for interprofessional education for students as a means of developing teamwork skills and increased understanding of roles.
A need exists for innovative teaching strategies that build interprofessional partnership skills. Topics should include improving team dynamics, understanding various roles of healthcare members, and enhancing collegial communication to facilitate optimal patient outcomes. Teaching strategies could range from a simulation activity to clinical assignments that strengthen partnerships and promote sharing of core professional values.
A team approach
To determine if students can learn interprofessional partnership skills through an innovative team-building experience, we conducted a descriptive study that included healthcare professions from two different schools. Our research question was, “Does an interprofessional partnership between nursing and bioengineering students provide an opportunity to develop interprofessional partnership competencies?”
An interprofessional experience at a large urban university was created with senior nursing and bioengineering students. The school of engineering offered the two-term “Senior design teams” course, which focused on discovering the process of identifying an unmet healthcare need, developing a product to improve patient care, and then learning how to take the product to market. Nursing students in the senior transition nursing clinic course voluntarily participated. This course elective opportunity awarded partial clinic hours to the nursing students for their participation. We obtained Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for the study.
Each team included one nursing student (who served as a consultant, collaborator, and link to the healthcare settings) and five bioengineering students. Based on similar interests (determined after meeting), each bioengineering group invited a student nurse to join them. During the first term, the teams brainstormed ideas to meet a healthcare need, developed a product prototype, and performed a risk analysis. In the second term, they focused on the potential need for design refinement with validation and testing of the product. Student groups also met with the IRB to determine if their projects required approval.
To assess the effectiveness of the interprofessional partnership experience, we surveyed 85 bioengineering and 11 nursing students over 3 years. We asked the bioengineering students, “What are your thoughts and impressions of having a student nurse embedded in your design team, including benefits and drawbacks?” We asked nursing students, “What are your thoughts of being embedded on an interdisciplinary design team, including benefits and drawbacks?” A bioengineering statistician collected the survey data, de-identified the results, and then reported back to the primary course faculty anonymously. We reviewed the survey responses for significant themes.
Student response
We reviewed the bioengineering and nursing students’ survey responses for emerging themes related to the benefits and drawbacks of the experience. Many student responses reflected multiple benefits and drawbacks. During the first terms, responding bioengineering students reported that the addition of a nursing student proved beneficial in several ways. They saw the nurse as a consultant who could generate ideas relevant to clinical needs, provide feedback on the design, and offer a different perspective on the project. Bioengineers also reported the value of the student nurse’s clinical experience. They viewed the student nurse as a liaison who connected the bioengineering students to patients, healthcare workers, faculty, labs, and care centers. The nurse’s knowledge of anatomy and physiology aided the design process.
The few drawbacks identified by the bioengineering students during the first terms included potential student nurse lack of knowledge of the role of the bioengineer and the product design process. Some respondents felt time commitment would be an issue due to different course schedules and no mandatory requirement for the student nurses to attend the design class or complete course assignments. The bioengineering students also expressed concern regarding nonalignment of interests. The insular lingo of each profession and team communication also presented concerns. A few bioengineering students said they felt unsure about what the nurse’s role would be in design development. Many respondents reported no drawbacks.
For the second term, the bioengineering students reported that the student nurses provided similar benefits as shared in the first term surveys but that they weren’t as involved in the product design phase. However, others discovered a new role for the nursing student—assisting with design validation and testing.
Concerns expressed by the bioengineering students during the second terms included underutilization of the student nurse due to lack of foresight into their role, scheduling challenges for group meetings, nonaligned interests, lack of commitment to the design or the course, and limited nursing student knowledge of the bioengineering role. Several bioengineering student respondents reported no drawbacks to the interprofessional experience. (See Common themes: Bioengineering students.)
Student nurses saw the benefits of the experience differently. For 3 years before participating in the design course, the nursing students had been learning about interprofessional practice. They viewed the experience as an opportunity to put those skills to use, and they said that it opened their eyes to a new opportunity for thinking and innovation. In addition, the nursing students felt that their clinical expertise helped the bioengineering group improve product design. They also discussed the importance of their ability to link the bioengineers to the clinical setting, lab, and healthcare experts to improve product quality and safety. Because each group had only one nursing student, we combined all their responses from the first and second terms.
The nursing students described few drawbacks. Some reported limited knowledge about the design process and others reported lack of clarity about their role. Most stated that the interprofessional experience provided a win–win opportunity for the bioengineering and nursing students. (See Common themes: Nursing students.)
Core competencies
We explored the common themes identified in the study and compared them to the four IPEC Core Competencies for interprofessional education (values and ethics, roles and responsibilities for collaborative practice, interprofessional communication, and teamwork and team-based care).
Values and ethics
IPEC defines values and ethics as “working with team members to maintain a climate of shared values, ethical conduct, and mutual respect.” This competency encourages healthcare providers to develop relationships with one another based on mutual trust and respect, while also recognizing and appreciating diversity of education and experience. The ethical component includes a moral obligation to work together as a team to provide optimal patient care.
Relevant student feedback. Survey responses indicated mutual respect and a desire to improve patient care. The bioengineering students expressed admiration for the nursing students’ clinical knowledge, awareness of patient needs and problems in the hospital setting, and their ability to provide feedback on design practicality. A few of the bioengineering students voiced concern about a nurse’s degree of commitment to the project and a lack of understanding of the engineer’s role. The potential for the nursing student to become an end user of the product also influenced its development.
Some of the nursing students noted the mutual respect that existed between the two groups. They saw themselves as consultants and liaisons and felt that the experience offered an opportunity to improve innovation in healthcare. They enjoyed viewing two different perspectives of the same problem, as well as learning the process involved in product design.
Roles and responsibilities
The IPEC report defines the roles and responsibilities competency as “using the knowledge of one’s own role and team members’ expertise to address individual and public health outcomes.” The goal of any interprofessional experience involves not only understanding the role of another profession, but also discovering how one’s own role is embedded in the healthcare team.
Relevant student feedback. Both bioengineering and nursing respondents noted a lack of clarity regarding the nurse’s role. For nursing students who remained with a design team for two terms, the bioengineering students saw them as helpful in the design phase during the first term, but less so when their role lacked clarity during product testing and validation in the second term.
Nursing students reported a concern that they may not understand what engineers do and that they had trouble grasping the feasibility of a solution. They also saw a new perspective for the nurse’s role in improving quality, safety, and innovation in patient care. Both groups reported a learning curve due to their different backgrounds, knowledge, and skill sets.
Interprofessional communication
The interprofessional communication competency requires participants in collaborative activities to “communicate in a responsible, responsive, respectful, and compassionate manner with team members.” Effective communication between professions requires respect and active listening. Participants should avoid jargon specific to one profession unless it’s first explained.
Relevant student feedback. Survey respondents shared positive and negative comments regarding communication between the bioengineering and nursing students. Positive comments from bioengineers included important feedback provided by nursing students about an unmet clinical need. Both groups felt that discussion produced helpful design feedback.
Some participants in both groups reported communication issues related to scheduling constraints and use of professional jargon. Concerns raised by bioengineers included possible differences in opinion and profession-specific jargon that may have impeded communication initially.
Teamwork and team-based care
The teamwork and team-based care competency involves applying “values and principles of the science of teamwork to adapt one’s own role in a variety of team settings.” To function effectively in healthcare, one must accept a team philosophy. No single individual can do it all. Teamwork includes identification of shared goals as well as collaborative decision-making and problem-solving to improve patient care. It also involves managing disagreements professionally.
Relevant student feedback. Both groups shared positive comments about effective group dynamics within their teams. Concerns raised by both groups included difficulty arranging meetings because of class scheduling conflicts. Most groups consisted of six team members: five bioengineers and one nursing student. Both bioengineering and nursing students reported issues in larger groups.
Limitations
Study limitations included a small sample of nursing students. This experience was part of the bioengineering curriculum, but nursing students electively chose to participate. In addition, not all bioengineering student groups chose to have a student nurse. Also, all participants came from one university.
The second term of the course focused on testing and validation, which left some bioengineering students wondering how to utilize the nursing student. A few student nurses who participated only in the second term had difficulty understanding their role in the course.
Step forward
This study indicates that providing an interprofessional educational experience can help undergraduate healthcare professionals learn about each other, practice teamwork and communication, and gain respect for each other’s profession. It also helped to identify areas for improvement in collaborative experience. By creating a learning opportunity to improve collegiality between nursing and bioengineering as healthcare team members, this study offered a step forward in tearing down silos that have existed in healthcare education for years.
Lucille Sowko is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Lisa
Foertsch is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Alice Jane Haimes is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
American Nurse Journal. 2025; 20(7). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ0725118
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education. 2021. aacnnursing.org/Portals/0/PDFs/Publications/Essentials-2021.pdf
Interprofessional Education Collaborative. IPEC Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Version 3. November 20, 2023. ipecollaborative.org/assets/core-competencies/IPEC_Core_Competencies_Version_3_2023.pdf
Karagory PM, Hountz D. Interdisciplinary, innovative, and international: Nursing and engineering technology students creating new patient technology. Nurs Educ Perspect. 2022;43(2):134-6. doi:10.1097/01.NEP. 0000000000000778
Song HY, Nam KA. The need for and perceptions of interprofessional education and collaboration among undergraduate students in nursing and medicine in South Korea. J Multidiscip Healthc. 2022;15:847-56. doi:10.2147/JMDH.S359412
