The National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education is pleased to announce that the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), through its recently established Center for Interprofessional Education and Simulation (CIPES) has joined the Nexus Innovation Network, a national research partnership testing new approaches to health care delivery and health professions education. CIPES director, Robert Rich, MD, remarks “UAB and CIPES are pleased to become members of the Nexus Innovation Network. With a substantial history of interprofessional collaboration and education, UAB’s designation of CIPES as a focus of these activities solidifies its commitment to interprofessional models of healthcare education and practice.  CIPES looks forward to adding a robust program of interprofessional simulation and an emerging program of interprofessional curricula to the Network’s partnership.” 

UAB joins 18 sites in 16 states already testing new models and methods of integrating health care practice and education. Each of the 31 projects in the Nexus Innovation Network focuses on the real-world testing of interprofessional strategies with the potential to improve the experience, outcomes and costs of health care. 

Interprofessional health care is widely acknowledged as the next major advance in the improvement of health care delivery. Interprofessional care occurs when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds blend their expertise to provide comprehensive health services to patients, families and communities.  

The concept is not new, but health systems, governmental agencies and educational institutions are beginning to look at how to fully implement it in practice and measure its outcomes on patient care. Introducing and mastering interprofessionalism is a challenge that necessitates careful planning and evaluation. 

The UAB CIPES includes two offices: the Office for Interprofessional Curriculum and the Office of Interprofessional Simulation for Innovative Clinical Practice. In joining the Nexus Innovation Network, UAB CIPES will facilitate interprofessional research throughout the institution for faculty and students from a variety of disciplines including dentistry, medicine, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, public health, and social work. 

“We are thrilled to have the University of Alabama at Birmingham join our growing Nexus Innovation Network,” said Barbara Brandt, PhD, director, National Center. “As longtime supporters of interprofessional practice and education, we’re excited to tap into the expertise of the UAB faculty and staff as we work to change how people learn about and experience health care.”

Influencing Perceptions through Interprofessional Faculty Development

Under the leadership of principal investigators Dawn Taylor Peterson, PhD, and Erica Pryor, PhD, RN, the project will measure the effect of a faculty development course on faculty perceptions of interprofessional collaboration and interprofessional behaviors. As an underlying assumption, students will in turn learn from faculty role models, with the goal of bringing about positive perceptions towards interprofessional collaboration and improving performance of team processes in simulation settings.

“Advancing health professions education and training in classrooms and experiential settings requires a faculty that is educated, trained and practiced in these skills,” said Frank Cerra, MD, senior advisor, National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. “The UAB intervention is designed to impact faculty development on the collaborative and behavioral aspects of such education and training. The information will provide guidance to national conversations, particularly in health science schools, on the direction of the health workforce redesign and the necessary competencies as the process of care moves forward.”

The project is estimated to take at least two years to complete. Throughout the process, the UAB CIPES team will collect and submit data to the National Center where it will be measured against data from other Nexus Innovation Network sites and national and federal databases. 

Scientists at the National Center will then analyze the information and share key findings through reports and peer-reviewed publications, increasing evidence on the effectiveness, and return on investment, of interprofessional models in developing the skills necessary for effective and efficient health care. 

Learn more about the work occurring at the UAB and other Nexus Innovation Network sites at nexusipe.org/advancing. 

About the University of Alabama at Birmingham

Known for its innovative and interdisciplinary approach to education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the University of Alabama at Birmingham is an internationally renowned research university and academic medical center, as well as Alabama’s largest employer, with some 23,000 employees, and has an annual economic impact exceeding $5 billion on the state. The five pillars of UAB’s mission deliver knowledge that will change your world: the education of students, who are exposed to multidisciplinary learning and a new world of diversity; service to the community at home and around the globe; the economic development of Birmingham and Alabama; research, the creation of new knowledge; and patient care, the outcome of ‘bench-to-bedside’ translational knowledge. Learn more at www.uab.edu.