International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) released Digital Health in Pharmacy Education report on January 27, 2021 (https://www.fip.org/file/4921). Dr. Dixon and Prof. Sherief of the College of Pharmacy, GMU contributed a case study of Interprofessional education (IPE) in the report. A digitally enabled integration of IPE to patient care in the GMU Academic Health System worked well in achieving early clinical exposure IPE activity.
It is best to start IPE early in the curriculum. We implemented IPE from week 2 of year 1 for students across all undergraduate programs at Gulf Medical University. Small IPE student groups with a mix of students from different health professions worked together to achieve their learning outcomes. Faculty/practitioners across the programs volunteered to supervise small IPE groups. The IPE activity was a signature assignment as part one of the courses in year 1. It was graded as part of the assessment for learning and mapped to the student portfolio under collaborator.
The IPE activity was a combination of synchronous and asynchronous communications between different stakeholders in healthcare. Students of different health professions programs learned from, with, and about each other. The plan is that in the future students will engage in more interprofessional care and digital health.