Standardized Patient and Standardized Interdisciplinary Team Meeting: Validation of a New Performance‐Based Assessment Tool

The interdisciplinary team ( IDT ) approach is critical in the care of elderly adults. Performance‐based tools to assess IDT skills have not been well validated. A novel assessment tool, the standardized patient ( SP ) and standardized interdisciplinary team meeting ( SIDTM ), consisting of two stations, was developed. First, trainees evaluate a SP hospitalized after a fall. Second, trainees play the role of the physician in a standardized IDT meeting with a standardized registered nurse ( SRN ) and standardized medical social worker ( SMSW ) for discharge planning. The SP ‐ SIDTM was administered to 52 fourth‐year medical students ( MS 4s) and six geriatric medicine fellows ( GMF s) in 2011/12. The SP , SRN , and SMSW scored trainee performance on dichotomous checklists of clinical tasks and L ikert scales of communication skills, which were compared according to level of training using t ‐tests. Trainees rated the SP ‐ SIDTM experience as moderately difficult, length of time about right, and believability moderate to high. Reliability was high for both cases (Cronbach α  = 0.73–0.87). Interobserver correlation between SRN and SMSW checklist scores (correlation coefficient ( r ) = 0.82, P  < .001) and total scores ( r  = 0.69, P  < .001) were high. The overall score on the SP ‐ SIDTM case was significantly higher for GMF (75) than for MS 4 (65, P  = .002). These observations support the validity of this novel assessment tool.