What & Why – Interprofessional Education (IPE)

What is Interprofessional Education (IPE)?

“Interprofessional education occurs when learners (students and/or faculty) from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” – World Health Organization, 2010.

For UAMS, IPE prepares our future healthcare professionals and researchers from all five colleges (medicine, pharmacy, nursing, health professions, public health) and our graduate school to respect and trust one another to enable more effective collaboration and team science in order to meet the quadruple aim by improving the patient care experience, improving the health of those we serve, and to discover how to reduce the cost of care.

Why IPE?

The traditional model of health care education and practice was housed within respective “silos”. These silos present barriers to collaboration.  Improving research and clinical outcomes are dependent on teams from various professions.  If individual from respective professions do not understand the roles and responsibilities, values and ethics, effective communication, or teamwork across professions, the ability to improve outcomes through collaboration is made much more difficult. IPE ensures that our learners are being properly prepared for a collaborative practice ready workforce to help transform the future of health care.

When did IPE begin at UAMS?

Since its inception, UAMS has been dedicated to educating future healthcare professionals. As with most academic medical centers IPE has lived in pockets of our organization for some time within our education, research, and collaborative practice delivery systems. In 2012, UAMS took a more structured approach to IPE, by developing an office that could focus on meeting the Quadruple Aim. The office of IPE developed an infrastructure that expands and supports IPE throughout UAMS.

This includes a five-pillar approach:

  • Curriculum
  • Collaborative Practice
  • Development
  • Faculty Development
  • Research/Scholarship

These pillars are built to have institutional perspective and influence in creating, designing, implementing and evaluating models, programs and activities that support the UAMS mission.