Interprofessional Education (IPE): IPE at UNC

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently announced it has established a new Office of Interprofessional Education & Practice (IPEP). The office will be housed at the Health Sciences Library (HSL), and led by Meg Zomorodi, PhD, RN, Assistant Provost of IPE.

Meg Zomorodi, clinical associate professor in the School of Nursing, will lead Carolina’s new Office for Interprofessional Education and Practice as assistant provost of Interprofessional Education.

On Dec. 3, an interprofessional team led by pharmacists at UNC Medical Center received the 2017 Award for Excellence in Medication Safety from the ASHP Foundation and the Cardinal Health Foundation for its work improving the care of patients with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. The award is the only one of its kind for pharmacist-led interprofessional teams and offers $50,000 for first place.

Kenan Charitable Trust Awards $1.5 million to UNC Health Affairs Schools

Clinical associate professor Lisa Zerden and clinical assistant professor Denise Dews have been tapped to serve as members of UNC’s newly launched Health Affairs Interprofessional Education (IPE) Steering Committee.

MSW student Cynthia Royals recently competed in the University of Minnesota’s CLARION case competition. Royals, who is enrolled in the UNC-PrimeCare program, participated in the nationally recognized event with UNC students from the schools of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and nursing.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Health Affairs Schools have joined forces to build collaborations to make interprofessional education and collaboration the norm for all students.

Fellows and projects from previous years, some with a focus on interprofessional education.

An interdisciplinary team at the UNC School of Medicine has been awarded nearly $900,000 to identify and address needs of mothers with medically fragile infants.

An interprofessional team of practitioners funded by the Carolina Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program presented to seniors and interested community members in Lee County

DAHS recognized its clinical preceptors during its annual clinical preceptor appreciation event. A video of the presentation "Student-Led Interprofessional Fieldwork Model for Clinical Site Innovations" led by Kheim Bui, Jessie Poteat, and Anna Weinberg, who represent physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology, respectively is available.

UNC Medical students were joined by 53 of their health professions colleagues from nursing, public health, social work, nutrition, physical and occupational therapy to comment on art and improve their observation skills. Students made connections between what is currently happening in health policy; issues of homelessness and struggle, using artistic interpretation and participating in an online game. The program was offered as part of the School of Medicine’s intensive integration course and built upon an IPE program offered through the Division of Geriatrics to 10 different disciplines under a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Dr. Jonathan Oberlander, Professor of Social Medicine at UNC provided the introductory lecture which allowed student to experience the complexities of navigating the affordable care act and the implications this has for healthcare access. Following this, students were given written prompts emphasizing geriatrics, poverty, and health including mental health to guide their interpretation of more than 100 works of art on display at the Ackland Museum. Finally, students had the option to play the Caring with Compassion game from the University of Michigan Medical School. This game is geared towards better understanding and addressing the needs of people with homelessness using IPE teams.

GKAS at UNC is an interprofessional event comprising a health fair with representatives from other units on campus in addition to providing oral care and education to young, local children.

Dr. Saif Khairat, Assistant Professor from the School of Nursing, received funding through the UNC Data@Carolina initiative program to launch the first of its kind Electronic Medical Record (EMR) usability course to be offered at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Amanda Holliday, MS, clinical assistant professor of nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, facilitated and participated in a two-day event to introduce UNC health affairs students to some of the challenges faced by older adults.

166 students from 9 disciplines came together for 2 days to collaboratively plan 3 geriatrics cases as an interprofessional team.

UNC School of Social Work Associate Professor Gina Chowa is proposing to launch a global research center dedicated to enhancing the lives of marginalized populations around the world by creating innovative social development interventions, building knowledge, generating new evidence, and impacting policies that ensure economic justice for the poor.

Dr. Rocio Quinonez received an outstanding achievement award from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine for her work on the National Steering Committee of the Smiles for Life Curriculum. Smiles for Life produces educational resources to ensure the integration of oral health and primary care for individual practitioners and for educators.

Student competition focused on improving health care through interprofessional collaboration

UNC-Chapel Hill selected to lead an unprecedented national push to equip clinicians with leadership, team-building and cultural competence skills to improve the health status of Americans.

An interprofessional education team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University will have a case study published on the websites of the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research.

The SON received a $1.5 million award from the Health Resources and Services Administration—Division of Nursing to provide interprofessional collaborative practice training in the emergency departments of four rural North Carolina hospitals.

The UNC Rural Interprofessional Health Initiative (RIPHI) is a three-year pilot program supported by a $1.5 million award from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust. This award will provide faculty and programmatic support that will enable UNC health professions students to serve and learn in underserved rural clinic settings in North Carolina. Goals of the project are to inspire a rural health care workforce and to help transform clinical care in underserved areas and to establish interprofessional clinical experiences in rural areas of North Carolina.

SHAC is a student led organization whose mission is to:
-Provide free health services to local underserved individuals and communities
-Partner with communities to develop and implement sustainable programs
-Create an interdisciplinary service learning environment for students in the health science programs at UNC

HAPI (Health Affairs Pipeline Initiative) is a collaboration from the UNC health affairs schools. HAPI’s goal is to increase retention of underrepresented minority health career students.

Part of the Mission of the Carolina Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program is to improve Interprofessional education at all levels.

The Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND)program at the CIDD is dedicated to providing interdisciplinary leadership training at undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. The training program welcomes students from a variety of disciplines, including Audiology, Education, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Public Health, Physical Therapy, Psychology, Social Work, and Speech and Language Pathology. The goal of the training is to prepare trainees from diverse professional disciplines to assume leadership roles in their respective fields by insuring high levels of interdisciplinary clinical competence.

Sleep science and neurodiagnostics are unique emerging health care professions dedicated to recording and studying the electrical activity of the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves, the function of the cardiovascular system, and the function of the respiratory system. Faculty are from many different departments, including Allied Health, Neurodiagnostics, Neurology, Anesthesiology, and others.

The mission of the Program for Early Autism Research, Leadership & Service (PEARLS) is to conduct cutting-edge research that promotes insights intothe early development of children with autism with translation to methods for detection and intervention, as well as interdisciplinary training of future leaders in the field.

The UNC Interdisciplinary Parkinson’s Clinic is a half-day clinic that provides individualized evaluations from five clinicians including a movement disorders specialist/neurologist, a clinical social worker, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist. The team provides patients with comprehensive notes on their condition and performance, and then works with them to provide any necessary referrals and other resource connections.

The goal of the Interdisciplinary Human Movement Science Lab is to understand the neurophysiological and biomechanical causes of altered muscle function and movement patterns for individuals who have had a stroke.

The mission of the Curriculum in Human Movement Science is to enhance the physical well-being and quality of life of people by creating and disseminating knowledge about the causes and consequences of human movement disorders including behavioral, physiologic and mechanical factors.

A group of researchers dedicated to linking the humanities and health sciences through student-centered research projects, innovative curricula, and public engagement. Our mission is to help prepare the next generation to think across disciplines, consult their values and passions, and tackle real-world problems to create meaningful social change.

The Carolina Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics integrates research and educational activities in mathematics and its intimate ties with the physical, engineering, biological, medical, and social sciences. The Center focus is to bring the power of mathematics to bear on the most intriguing, challenging, and relevant problems of our time, in collaborations with colleagues at UNC and elsewhere.

A collaborative effort between the Exceptional Children Division of the NC Department of Public Instruction and the UNC Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. The goal of this ongoing project is to establish a network of school-based teams that have the capacity and capabilities to effectively assess children with significant communication difficulties and to determine their need for alternative or augmentative communication systems or devices.

FIRE grants, funded through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, provide seed funding for broad, collaborative, research activities that are interdisciplinary and involve at least two faculty members from different departments, disciplines, or schools across UNC. The priority for interdisciplinary awards is for teams of faculty from dramatically different areas who come together to create new research or scholarship ideas or approaches.