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This web-based tool kit guides a faculty team through the steps to develop, implement, and evaluate interprofessional education experiences in the clinical setting. The toolkit includes concrete and specific instructions as well as checklists and worksheets to guide a faculty team through the process, including the use of our observational tool for team skills, DOTI (Direct Observation of Team Interactions). The components include clinical site readiness, student readiness, on-site curriculum, faculty training, specifics on DOTI, and evaluation.

Background: Creating and optimizing clinically based interprofessional education experiences for student learning while adding value to patient care is challenging at every step of the process. Difficult steps include collaborating to create the clinical experience, implementing and managing an effective team-skills curriculum, assessment of students’ collaborative skills and evaluation of the impact on patient care. Over the past four years our team developed, implemented, and tested the Interprofessional Learning Experience and Practice model, ILEAP. The model was built upon national and international research and goals for interprofessional education, as well as best practices and lessons learned from our work at Case Western Reserve University.  We have placed 122 students on 29 teams at 6 unique clinical sites. We used direct observation and student self-report data to demonstrate the acquisition and application of collaborative care team skills by the student teams, while having a measurable impact on patient care.