Join Dr. Sam Coppoletti, PTA Education Lead at PhysioU, for an exploration of an interprofessional education (IPE) simulation designed for PTA programs. This session will highlight how formative, virtual IPE experiences allow PTA students to engage with a realistic neurological case while practicing communication, role clarity, and collaborative clinical decision-making. Faculty will learn strategies for integrating IPE simulations into classroom and lab instruction to support interprofessional competencies and prepare students for team-based clinical practice.  

Featured Speaker: Sam Coppoletti, PT, DPT

Dr. Coppoletti is a veteran PTA educator with a diverse clinical and academic background. He has earned degrees from Northern Illinois University, the University of Iowa, and Shenandoah University. His career includes work as a PTA, rural hospital director, pediatric cooperative therapist, and MPT faculty at Southwest Baptist University. He also led the Shawnee State PTA Program for eight years, served a decade at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College, and directed the Hocking College PTA Program. Dr. Coppoletti has served on the Ohio PT Licensure Board, the OPTA Ethics Committee, and as a consultant to NPTE Final Frontier. He is part of an international team teaching in Cameroon’s first PT bachelor’s program and currently teaches for Lake Superior College’s PTA Military Bridge Program and Stark State College’s PTA Program.

Featured Speaker: Tracy Moore, PT, DPT, ONC 

Dr. Moore is a physical therapist, faculty member, product manager and educational leader. He is an active speaker at national and international conferences, specializing in oncology rehabilitation, chronic pain, and learning science. Dr. Moore continues to conduct and publish research, present at industry conferences, and contribute to PhysioU app design and development.

00:00 IPE Simulation and Education Apps

06:08 WCAG Compliance and Simulation Updates

17:17 Instructor Resources and Teaching Strategies

20:53 Remote IPE Program Implementation Discussion

22:57 Physical Therapy Education App Discussion

Helpful Links: Complimentary Educator access | Educator resources | Set up a Demo

Making Interprofessional Education Work: How We’re Helping PTA Programs Meet CAPTE Standards Without the Logistical Headaches

If you’ve ever tried to organize an interprofessional education (IPE) event for your PTA program, you know the drill. You spend three months coordinating schedules across four different departments. You hunt for standardized patients who can deliver consistent performances. You craft detailed briefing and debriefing prompts, hoping they’ll generate the rich learning conversations you’re envisioning. And then, on the day of the event, you’re managing a room full of students from nursing, occupational therapy, speech pathology, and physical therapy – all trying to collaborate around a patient case while you orchestrate the chaos.It’s valuable learning, certainly. But it’s also exhausting, resource-intensive, and difficult to scale. And for many PTA programs, getting all the right people in the same room at the same time simply isn’t feasible.

We built our Interprofessional Practice simulation in PhysioU specifically to solve this problem. During a recent webinar for PTA educators, we walked through how this comprehensive macro simulation delivers authentic IPE experiences while eliminating most of the logistical complexity that makes traditional IPE so challenging to implement.

A Complete Team Conference Experience—Without Coordinating Multiple Departments

At the heart of our IPE simulation is Andrew, a patient recovering from a traumatic brain injury sustained in a bicycle accident. Students observe a full care team conference involving a physiatrist, nurse, speech-language pathologist, physical therapist, and occupational therapist, along with a case manager coordinating discharge planning and insurance benefits.

What makes this approach powerful is its asynchronous flexibility. Students from different programs – whether they’re on the same campus or across the country – can complete the simulation on their own schedule. They watch the care team members present their evaluations, discuss treatment approaches, and coordinate care goals. Students answer questions throughout the module that test their understanding of each discipline’s role and responsibilities. They see the PT’s evaluation unfold and consider what observations a PTA would note during that process. Then, when it’s time for the synchronous component, students come prepared. They’ve already engaged deeply with the case. They understand the patient’s condition, the Rancho Los Amigos and Glasgow Coma Scale assessments, and how each care team member contributes to the overall care plan. The live session – which can happen via Zoom with students in breakout rooms – becomes focused on higher-level discussion: exploring professional roles, identifying how goals align across disciplines, and reflecting on what effective collaboration looks like in practice.

As we noted during the webinar, we’ve successfully run this format between institutions in different states – PT students in Southern California collaborating with nursing students in Idaho, for example. The model scales beautifully because the heavy lifting happens asynchronously, and the synchronous session requires just 30 minutes to an hour of instructor coordination to organize breakout rooms.

Addressing CAPTE Standards With Ready-Made Resources

For PTA programs, this simulation directly addresses multiple CAPTE standards, particularly 7A, 7C, and 7D, which focus on interprofessional collaboration, understanding team roles, and participating in care team conferences. We’ve mapped these standards clearly within the app itself, and we provide a comprehensive curricular guide that shows exactly how the simulation aligns with accreditation requirements.

But we also recognized that even with a great simulation, faculty still need support materials to make implementation smooth. That’s why we’ve created detailed instructor and student guides that essentially script the entire experience for you.

The student guide outlines what learners need to do before the synchronous session: complete the module, upload their grade to the LMS, and come prepared to discuss their professional role openly. It sets expectations for participation and includes a post-session survey to capture reflections.

The faculty guide provides an agenda with specific time allocations, suggested breakout prompts, and debriefing questions. Both student and faculty guides are readily accessible right from the app’s teaching content section. Everything you need is in one place – no need to create materials from scratch or guess at the best way to facilitate the discussion.

Building IPE Into Your Progressive Curriculum

During the webinar, we discussed how PhysioU apps can be integrated throughout a PTA program, not just as isolated assignments but as part of a progressive learning journey. Early in the program, students might use our formative learning apps covering equipment familiarization and gait training – straightforward reference tools that help build foundational knowledge. As they advance, they can tackle more complex applications like our task analysis and pediatrics apps. Then, toward the end of their program, the IPE simulation serves as a summative capstone experience that brings everything together. Students synthesize their clinical knowledge, apply critical thinking about patient care coordination, and demonstrate their understanding of how PTAs fit within the broader healthcare team.

We encourage programs to position PhysioU not just as a teaching tool during the program, but as a resource students can continue using for board exam preparation and even in clinical practice. One of our presenters mentioned regularly reminding faculty to tell students: “Keep this access. When you’re working and you haven’t seen a cervical traction patient in six months, you can pull up the app on your phone and refresh your memory.” That kind of just-in-time learning support extends the value of the platform well beyond graduation.

Accessibility and Assessment Features That Matter

This year, we achieved WCAG 2.2 accessibility compliance across our platform, adding audio descriptions and closed captions to ensure all students can engage fully with the content. While regulatory deadlines have shifted, we’re committed to maintaining this standard because accessibility isn’t just about compliance – it’s about ensuring every learner can succeed.

For assessment purposes, every simulation includes built-in scoring that students can download as a PDF report and submit directly to your LMS. One approach we’ve seen work well: assign students to complete the simulation and aim for 80% mastery. If they don’t hit that threshold on the first attempt, they complete it again, learning more through the repetition. The platform tracks all attempts, giving both students and faculty clear visibility into performance.

We’ve also included educator answer keys for every e-learning module and simulation. These keys provide learning objectives, case details, and correct answer rationales – essentially giving you a complete preview before you assign the module to students. It’s the kind of resource that helps faculty feel confident and prepared, especially when using a simulation for the first time or refreshing their memory before a lab session.

Making It Work for Your Program

One question that came up during the webinar was about programs that have OTA or nursing students on the same campus. The answer is simple: bring them in. The simulation is designed to accommodate mixed groups, and you can even pull out specific segments to facilitate targeted discussions about team dynamics and role clarity.

The beauty of the asynchronous-first model is its flexibility. You can scale it to match your program’s size and resources. You can coordinate with other institutions to create richer interprofessional experiences. You can adapt the synchronous session to focus on the issues most relevant to your students.

And if you’re just getting started with PhysioU, we’re here to help. We offer faculty support sessions where we can walk through any app or feature in detail. We respond promptly to emails and can schedule one-on-one time to discuss implementation strategies specific to your curriculum. Faculty members regularly reach out with questions or suggestions, and we feed that input directly into our development process – we’re constantly innovating based on what educators tell us they need.

Moving Forward

Interprofessional education doesn’t have to be an organizational nightmare. With the right tools and support, you can deliver meaningful IPE experiences that meet accreditation standards, develop students’ collaborative competencies, and prepare them for the team-based reality of clinical practice – all without the logistical burden that has traditionally made IPE so challenging.

We built this simulation because we believe PTA students deserve access to the same quality of interprofessional learning that’s available in other healthcare programs. They need to understand how their role connects to the broader care team, how different disciplines approach the same patient, and what effective collaboration looks like in practice. This simulation delivers all of that in a format that’s pedagogically sound, practically feasible, and genuinely engaging for students.

If you’re looking for a way to strengthen your program’s IPE component while simplifying your own workload, we’d love to show you what’s possible. Because at the end of the day, our goal is the same as yours: preparing confident, competent PTAs who can step into clinical practice ready to contribute meaningfully to patient care teams.

Interested in exploring how PhysioU can support your PTA program? Visit our webinar library to view recordings on adaptive equipment, musculoskeletal content, and other topics, or reach out to schedule a personalized demonstration.