The Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative (HPAC) and National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education released a consensus guidance on developing high quality interprofessional education (IPE) in 2019. Stressing the importance of IPE, institutional leaders with responsibility for accreditation and IPE were advised to create systematic IPE approaches to facilitate institution-wide collaboration. Leaders responsible for planning and implementing IPE were encouraged to develop program-specific IPE plans. Individual professions occupy a unique and valuable position within the complex care delivery systems that impact patient and population health outcomes. Foundational IPE experiences applicable for all learners are indispensable. To prepare learners for the unique roles/responsibilities they will occupy on interprofessional teams, however, additional profession-specific IPE opportunities are needed.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s (UT Health San Antonio) Strategic Vision emphasizes Teamwork & Collaboration. Our current Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration (LINC), a requirement for institutional accreditation, seeks to advance this vision. Goals include increasing IPE knowledge for community members and integrating IPE activities into formal curricula across our five schools of dentistry, graduate biomedical sciences, health professions, medicine, and nursing. The Strategic Vision and QEP represent UT Health San Antonio’s systematic IPE approach.
The Associate Deans responsible for curriculum across all schools joined forces in 2019 as the LINC Academic Affairs Council. One important effort was the joint creation of a consensus template to guide program-specific IPE plan development. Each Council member is leading or overseeing a school-based IPE task force to finalize program-specific IPE plans using the consensus template. Upon completion, IPE plans will be shared to identify areas of common interest and future collaboration. In this lightning talk, Council members will discuss progress and lessons learned through this effort to transform IPE at UT Health San Antonio.
