The Misericordia Interprofessional Task Force was organized in Spring 2015 with an intent to create, support and coordinate interprofessional education and practice within our college. As of Fall 2017, we have successfully transitioned to full committee status within the College of Health Science and Education.

The tragic death of Sue Sheridan’s husband and permanent injury of her son due to medical errors and miscommunication have spurred a commitment to improved patient safety. Watch the video below to learn more about her hope for safer patient care through organizations that adopt a culture of safety and embrace teamwork.

 MIPEC Syllabus Statement Example

It is helpful to plan ahead for inclusion of IPE activities. Below is an example of an IPE syllabus statement:

This course utilizes Interprofessional Education (IPE) activities to enhance the educational goals and objectives stated above (course objectives). These activities may require time outside of regularly scheduled course times. Interprofessional education occurs when students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes. The overall goal is to support the collaborative team approach to patient/client-centered care through competency and understanding of:

• Values and Ethics for interprofessional practice
• Roles and Responsibilities for collaborative practice
• Interprofessional Communication
• Interprofessional Teamwork and Team-based Care

Are you aware that we have 3 TeamSTEPPS Master Trainers in the College of Health Science and Education? TeamSTEPPS is an acronym for Team Strategies & Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety and is supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). TeamSTEPPS is an evidence-based set of teamwork tools, aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals. The TeamSTEPPS curriculum promotes communication, leadership, situation monitoring and mutual support using techniques such as SBAR, Huddle, Hand-off, Briefs among others. If you are interested in Faculty Development Training or learning more about TeamSTEPPS for the classroom, please let your department representative know.

Please consider incorporating an IPE activity into your course curriculum! If you do an activity with other professions we would appreciate hearing from you what you experienced for our records.