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Local Department Leaders
Faculty members from every profession that you want to include in IPE programming
should be enlisted in your efforts. If your program is located at an institution that does not have other health-related degree programs, reach out to other non-health related academic departments if available. Today, it is rare to find a profession that doesn’t require some teamwork coordination skills.19 Work with faculty members from other departments, for instance environmental science, law, public policy, computer design, or the arts, to identify interests or areas of study where the two professions intersect, then coordinate an interpro- fessional activity around the topic. Alternatively, an affiliation agreement or memorandum of understanding can be executed with an extramural institution with one or more health-related programs that could be strong IPE collaborative partners.
The WHO report on establishing a framework for IPE and CP calls for health leaders to “champion the benefits of interprofessional collaboration with their...partners, educators, and health workers.”3 The term “champion” is commonly used to refer to faculty partners as they assume many responsibilities and promote IPE as vital learning within their local communities, often on a volunteer basis. Faculty members are needed to recruit students for programs, supervise and facilitate activities, and develop programming. A variety of perspectives should be included in planning committees, curricular workgroups, and evaluation efforts. An inter- professional faculty group also offers a wide professional community for you to call upon for funding, arenas in which to publish research, and other needs.
Scheduling is a widespread challenge for IPE programs as each health professional program has its own curricular requirements and varies in duration, student availability for in-person activities, and accreditation standards.20 Your IPE champions who represent each profession have the information needed to determine the best schedule and learning objectives for all students. As was mentioned, champions are often secured, at least initially, on a volunteer basis as funding may be limited. If funding is available for the time and efforts champions devote, it can help with program sustainability and defer attrition for a period of time until individual faculty members retire or leave. By sustaining the work of IPE champions, funding or other incentives can have a positive impact on programming.
Pre-Existing Interprofessional Teams
Section 1.3 explains the importance of conducting an initial needs assessment of your institution’s local environment to determine your institution’s strengths and gaps in IPE competencies. If your program is closely linked with a clinical practice environment, the iden- tification of pre-existing interprofessional health care teams where collaboration between professions is already established, is an institutional strength. Because students learn from what they experience, these teams can be engaged for clinical observation, leading simula- tions, and panel discussions about collaboration and teamwork in practice. If your institution is not directly affiliated with an interdisciplinary practice environment, reach out to the loca- tions where students are completing clinical rotations to see if any interprofessional teams would be interested in hosting an activity for your students. Also, your local institution may have pre-existing teams that are not health care-related but could have equal educational value for students to gain insight about team functioning. Integrating community and patient partners into IPE and CP initiatives is also a very positive team approach.
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ASCO IPECP Toolkit
June 2020