The Significance of Student Driven Interprofessional Healthcare Education for Clinical Collaboration and Care
Background: The IPE Student Advisory Committee (SAC) is a student-run committee that serves as a collaborative community for all the health professional schools and officially recognized interprofessional education (IPE) organizations at the University of Michigan. For the 2020-2021 academic year, the SAC co-chairs determined there was a need to improve the IPE experience for students across the health professional schools, increase engagement with interprofessional education, and improve communication among interprofessionals. The aims of the project were to identify structure-based initiatives that could be implemented successfully so that other IPE organizations and groups could utilize the same methodology, as well as hoping to educate fellow IPE champions on different opportunities for students to have an impact on their university’s IPE programming.
Methodology: SAC aimed to improve three priority areas: structure, education, and wellness. They hoped to add an additional co-chair and divide the co-chairs into different priority areas. The co-chairs aimed to create an IPE representative program in which students passionate about IPE were selected from each health school to serve as members of SAC and act as liaisons between SAC, their school, and the other health professional schools. There was also a desire from students to see more experiential based learning, hence a workgroup of faculty and SAC co-chairs worked to create a new IPE experience, Longitudinal Interprofessional Family-Based Experience (LIFE). The SAC Co-Chairs partnered with a representative from the University of Michigan Wellness Office.
Results: LIFE was officially launched and is currently active in its first semester. SAC also convened a Wellness Task Force who will work directly with the Wellness Office representative to improve communication about different wellness offerings. SAC successfully recruited 12 student representatives. With the support of SAC, they have seen growth and support of their IPE endeavors. They have plans to expand courses, increase funding, and improve interprofessional opportunities for their students.
Conclusion: Organizational change can be a difficult undertaking, but it is especially crucial to execute well when working within interprofessional teams. Creating priority areas with specific initiatives and clear outcomes for each proved to be the most effective strategy to accomplish the improvements.
Reflections: As a fairly new organization that serves as a role model for IPE excellence, SAC revolutionized how interprofessional organizations function and achieve goals to improve the interprofessional experience for all students at the University of Michigan..
