Christine Kaunas, MPH
Executive Director Interprofessional Education & Research
Texas A&M Health
Christine Kaunas, MPH is the Executive Director for Interprofessional Education & Research at Texas A&M Health. She provides institutional leadership for interprofessional education (IPE) by building infrastructure for IPE, providing faculty development for IPE, and supporting interprofessional student activities. She received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from DePaul University in Chicago, completed her master’s degree in public health (epidemiology) at San Diego State University, and is completing a doctoral degree in higher education administration. She is an assistant lecturer in the Department of Health Policy & Management at TAMU’s School of Public Health.

Presenting at the Nexus Summit:

Texas A&M Health’s Disaster Day is the nation’s largest student-led interprofessional emergency response simulation. Since 2008, the annual event has grown to 800 students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, psychology, athletic training, veterinary medicine, and the Corp of Cadets. Traditionally conducted at a world-class training facility for emergency responders, interprofessional student teams work to rescue survivors, manage communications/logistics, solve public health cases using patient-level clues, and diagnose/treat standardized patients. The goal is to produce…
Objectives: Discuss the development and impact of a model for state-wide inter-institutional collaboration around IPE Identify opportunities and strategies for development and sustainment of a state-wide or regional inter-institutional collaboration   Abstract: The Texas IPE Consortium, established in 2015 as an IPE Task Force, began as a collaboration between the executive leadership of the Texas state funded Academic Health Science Centers: The University of Texas System HSCs, Texas Tech University HSC, The University of North Texas HSC and the Texas A&M HSC. Renamed the Texas IPE…
BackgroundData conf that high functioning, interprofessional teams improve health outcomes (Interprofessional Education Collaborative, 2016). However, academic health institutions traditionally provide education uniprofessionally where students from a single profession learn together in parallel or interactively (Freeth, et al 2008). Therefore, academic health institutions must provide an interprofessional education (IPE). However, executing interprofessional learning experiences across colleges with differing curricula, accreditation requirements, and academic calendars remains a challenge.…