Professional Advancement Through Collaboration and Knowledge Between Nursing and Packaging Students : The PACK Initiative

Abstract

Nursing and packaging professionals play a central role in patient safety. Little is known about how undergraduate students learn about the respective disciplines. Objective: The project aims to promote cross-industry education between packaging and nursing students to contribute to patient safety and improve medical device usability. Nursing student researchers created educational videos for packaging students to be included in a medical packaging course. The videos focused on 1) Nursing competencies, ethics, and principles related to medical packaging in the acute care setting; and 2) Demonstration of nursing sterile and clean procedures. Methods: The Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice, guided the project (World Health Organization, 2010). The videos will be presented in a medical packaging course. Voluntary and anonymous pre and post survey design will be used to determine if changes in packaging student knowledge and confidence occurred. The instrument includes 9 Likert scale questions and one additional open-ended question on the post-test. Likert scale questions will be analyzed with paired samples t-test. Qualitative analysis will be used for the open-ended question. Results: Results will be analyzed in spring 2025. Conclusions: Preliminary work has been promising. It is anticipated that results will show an increase in knowledge and confidence.