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Joe Zorek, PharmD, BCGP, joined The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) in 2019 as Director of their Quality Enhancement Plan, "Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration." Joe's faculty appointment at UT Health San Antonio resides in the School of Nursing as Associate Professor with Tenure. He began his academic career in 2013 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy, where he served as Director of Interprofessional Education, following completion of a two-year Pharmacotherapy Residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Joe is a board certified geriatric pharmacist whose practice interests include incorporation of pharmacists into interprofessional health teams, leveraging pharmacists to facilitate effective transitions of care, and the implementation of innovative services to mitigate medication-related risks in older adults.

Joe’s primary research interests center on interprofessional education (IPE), with secondary foci on outcomes from practice-based innovations and curriculum assessment. His analysis of IPE accreditation standards published in the Journal of Interprofessional Care in 2013 highlighted opportunities to utilize the accreditation process to advance IPE throughout the health professions and drew attention to the need for valid and reliable measurement instruments. Joe presented an updated accreditation analysis in 2016 at the National Academy of Medicine's workshop entitled "The Role of Accreditation in Enhancing Quality and Innovation in Health Professional Education," which led to a grant in 2017 to represent the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education on a collaborative project between the National Center and the Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative. This project resulted in a consensus national guideline entitled "Guidance on Developing Quality Interprofessional Education for the Health Professions," which was endorsed by 24 accrediting bodies and released to the public on February 1, 2019.

Joe and his collaborators won the 2014 Rufus A. Lyman Award for best paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education for their work developing and validating the Student Perceptions of Physician-Pharmacist Interprofessional Clinical Education (SPICE) instrument. He continues to lead the effort to refine the SPICE family of instruments and broaden their applicability throughout the health professions. A validation study of SPICE-R, a revised version intended for a broader audience, was recognized in 2017 with a Baldwin Award as one of the best papers published in the Journal of Interprofessional Care. To date, Joe has granted permission requests to use version 2 of this instrument (SPICE-R2) to educators, clinicians, and/or researchers from over 30 different states within the US and ten countries around the world: Australia, Canada, Germany, Kuwait, Netherlands, New Zealand, Phillipines, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, and Singapore.

Joe previously served as Associate Editor for Interprofessional Education for the journal Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, where he led the creation of a new manuscript category called “Interprofessional Education Reports.” He currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice, the official journal of the National Academies of Practice.  Joe is a charter member of the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative and a member of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, and the American Pharmacists Association.

Featured Contributions:

Webinar Guest, 2015:  National Center Journal Club #2: "The SPICE Instrument and Its Ongoing Development"

Invited Reviewer, 2015:  Evaluating Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice: What Should I Consider When Selecting a Measurement Tool?

Webinar Guest, 2019: Guidance on Developing Quality Interprofessional Education for the Health Professions