Mission

The Office of Interprofessional Education at the University of Florida has been providing interprofessional learning opportunities for multiple health professions students since 1999.  Our office, in conjunction with the six Health Science Center Colleges, develops learning opportunities that cross college boundaries. These joint educational experiences will result in health professionals who have the attitudes, skills and behaviors to communicate effectively with other health care providers, can work effectively in health care teams, and can demonstrate professional conduct during interprofessional encounters. Ultimately, joint learning opportunities will lead to higher quality, safer clinical care.

Developing Interprofessional Learning

The Office of Interprofessional Education at the University of Florida Health Science Center works with the six Health Science Center colleges to develop and maintain interprofessional learning experiences for students. It is clear to many leading national organizations, such as the Institute of Medicine and many other professional groups, that learning in teams with other health professionals is an important way to improve the health and safety of the population. The University of Florida has a long history of interprofessional learning through the Interdisciplinary Family Health course, which began in 1999, and currently involves over 600 students, 125 faculty and 200 families from the Gainesville area. A history of the course and the Office can be found here (Academic Medicine Vol 80 No 4 April 2005).

Under the leadership of David Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System, a strategic planning process for UF&Shands commenced in August 2009. A 25-member Strategic Planning Cabinet conducted an environmental assessment of our academic health center and met monthly to define our vision and values and develop an overarching five-year plan that will guide the academic health center as a whole and provide the framework for specific strategic plans in each of our colleges, centers, institutes and hospitals. In the Strategic Plan for UF&Shands, interprofessional education was identified as a key focus for the education mission, given the contiguous location and overlapping educational competencies of the six colleges that comprise the University of Florida Health Science Center.

Specifically, the curriculum will train students to develop interpersonal and communication skills with other health-care providers, practice shared decision-making, manage conflicts and show flexibility when working with others. They will learn to demonstrate professional conduct during interprofessional encounters, gain knowledge of others’ disciplines and, especially, show evidence of interprofessional teamwork skills in clinical and nonclinical settings. Ultimately, joint learning opportunities for students from different health science colleges will result in more collaborative practice skills when these students become health professionals, and this in turn will lead to higher quality, safer clinical care. This will be accomplished by determining a set of common required interprofessional competencies for all colleges, and then by providing learning opportunities, both required and elective, to meet those competencies for all our Health Science Center students. Those competencies, and a roadmap for their implementation across the matriculation of our students, can be found here (NEWRoadmap2011).

UF interprofessional programs have been at the forefront of collaborative learning for many years. (Medical Education Online 2011) Our program has  been visited by the Carnegie Foundation, and we were one of four academic health centers visited by a panel composed of experts from national professional organizations representing medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing and public health.  Other health centers have modeled their programs after our efforts. The support provided by the Health Science Center administration and the deans and faculty of each of our colleges will continue to allow the expansion of our curriculum to an even greater level of collaboration.

Below is a partial list of our publications:

Bridges D, Davidson R, Odegard P, Maki I, Tomkowiak J. Interprofessional collaboration: three best practice models of interprofessional education.  Medical Education Online 2011: 6035-6045.

Waddell R, Isaza N, Murray G, Glikes M, Davidson RA.  The role of veterinary medicine in an Interdisciplinary Family Health Course. J Vet Med Education 2010:37(2): 126-129.

Davidson RA, Waddell R. A Historical Overview of Interdisciplinary Family Health: A Community-Based Interprofessional Health Professions Course. Acad Med 2005;80:334-338.

Weitzel, K, Presley, D, Showalter, M, Seymour, S., and Waddell, R. Pharmacist-managed headache clinic in an interdisciplinary setting.American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, Vol. 61 Dec.; 1-7.

Burg, M. & Waddell, R. The Keeping Families Healthy Program: Collaborative Training in The “Real World” of Family Health. Family Health Systems Journal. 2003;21(2): 227-232.

Davidson RA, Giancola A, Gast A, Ho J, Waddell RF. The ACCESS Program: Providing Primary Care and its effect on Emergency Room Utilization. Journal of Community Health,  2003; 28: 59-64.

Davidson RA. Community-based education and problem-solving: The Community Health Scholars Program. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 2002;4(3):178-81.

Waddell RF, Burg MA, McCarthy J, Davidson RA. Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Course for Medical, Nursing, and Pharmacy Students.  Annals of Behavioral Science and Medical Education, 2002;8:85-91.

Davidson, RA, Waddell RF. Providing funding for self-pay patients: A controlled trial.  Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.  2002; 13:5-12.

Burg MA, Waddell RF, Doty R, Horne C,  Weilgas MA,Davidson RA.  Student interest in geriatric medicine: Comparing beginning medical, nursing, and pharmacy students. Gerontology and Geriatrics Education 2001;21:1-12.

Horne C, Medley F. Community-based strategies: An interdisciplinary community-based clinical experience for beginning students. Nurse Educator 2001;26:120-124.

Waddell RF, Davidson RA. The role of the community in educating medical students: Initial impressions from a new program. Education for Health . 13:67, 2000