On the Health Sciences Campus at UMKC, interprofessional education, or IPE, is an important learning tool. It brings together students from dental, medicine, nursing and pharmacy and places them in learning activities focused on team-based patient care. A new video highlights this IPE program and its benefits, filmed during a recent poverty simulation exercise.
The UMKC Health Sciences IPE program is directed by Stefanie Ellison, M.D., associate dean for learning initiatives at the UMKC School of Medicine and emergency physician at Truman Medical Centers; and Valerie Ruehter, Pharm.D., director of experiential learning and clinical associate professor for the UMKC School of Pharmacy.
“We can create individual practitioners, but in health care today, it takes an entire team to create positive patient outcomes,” said Ruehter. “With IPE, we give students the chance to become familiar with what every discipline brings to the table, which hopefully will make a more seamless health care system.”
That’s a goal of IPE, said Ellison. “If we have our students learning in silos, but they are expected on day one in practice to begin working together as a team, then we haven’t really done our job. At UMKC, we are breaking down those silos.”