The Center for Interprofessional Education, which for the past seven years has worked to advance an interdisciplinary health-care educational effort at the University of Michigan, is now launching its next phase.
With renewed support from the Office of the Provost and deans of the 10 U-M health science colleges and schools, C-IPE is focusing through 2026 on four areas: better health, better patient experience, lower cost, and improved provider well-being.
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“All of us involved in IPE at Michigan are in firm agreement that we can bring an innovative approach to IPE that can impact health that most universities cannot — for these reasons, we can become the national leader in IPE,” said Rajesh S. Mangrulkar, the Marguerite S. Roll Professor of Medical Education, who was named center director in 2021.
Since its inception in 2015, the C-IPE has brought together hundreds of faculty members and thousands of learners to help the latter learn how to become members of skilled teams of collaborative care practitioners who positively affect the delivery of high-quality, safe, and effective health care services.
Participants hail from the College of Pharmacy and the schools of Dentistry, Kinesiology, Medicine, Nursing, Public Health and Social Work, as well as the College of Education, Health, and Human Services at U-M-Dearborn and the College of Health Sciences and School of Nursing at U-M-Flint.
“Faculty and staff have real enthusiasm for this work. We will build efficient training for them in IPE so they can help instruct our students in practice and community settings. We will also more deliberately support their research endeavors, connecting them to each other in a community of practice and scholars,” Mangrulkar said during the recent 2022 U-M Health Professions Education Day.
“In addition, our learners will fully benefit from this work, being deliberately recruited here to thrive in interprofessional teams.”
The center’s efforts for the next four years will continue its foundational work, defining and implementing the core curriculum for U-M health professional students. But it will also build a larger community of faculty and staff to implement IPE in new experiential settings, deliberately trained as educators, with intentional measurement of its impact on learning, practice and health outcomes.
“The academic strengths across the health science schools on the Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses, working in partnership with the C-IPE, will mobilize strategy and drive innovation to make a lasting impact in collaborative health care,” said Laurie K. McCauley, dean and William K. and Mary Anne Najjar Professor of Periodontics in the School of Dentistry, professor of pathology in the Medical School, and chair of the Health Sciences Council. “Dr. Mangrulkar is the ideal leader of this effort, and we are confident he will propel the center to the next level of collective distinction.”
Faculty, staff and learners from all three campuses are needed to join the workgroups being launched that will implement five key interconnected strategies comprising the center’s recently endorsed strategic blueprint. Any member of the U-M community can express interest in joining the IPE workgroups.
“C-IPE has been very successful in assembling a robust cohort of faculty and learners to advance a very critical area of learning — working within interdisciplinary teams to improve health care,” said Valeria Bertacco, vice provost for engaged learning, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of computer science and engineering.
“Looking ahead, the future promises myriad possibilities for the center to further enhance interprofessional education by exploring new ideas and providing opportunities for our learners to excel as members of teams that represent the full spectrum of the health sciences at the University of Michigan.”
