JOHNSON CITY (Sept. 21, 2022) – East Tennessee State University’s commitment to interprofessional education is strengthening and expanding with the recent creation of the ETSU Center for Interprofessional Collaboration.
Interprofessional education (IPE) is rooted in students learning and practicing team-based, collaborative care in order to improve health outcomes for patients.
Ten years ago, ETSU began its formal approach to IPE by establishing programming and laying the groundwork for the renovation of a building on ETSU’s VA campus to be dedicated completely to interprofessional education. Bishop Hall (also known as Building 60) opened in 2018 and has served as a hub for collaboration among ETSU’s five health sciences colleges, including Quillen College of Medicine, Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, and the colleges of Nursing, Public Health and Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences.
“ETSU has a long history of engagement in interprofessional education and practice,” said Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle, provost and senior vice president for Academics. “The Center for Interprofessional Collaboration is the next step in elevating ETSU’s national reputation as a leader in interprofessional education.”
The center will provide infrastructure support for interprofessional education and research and foster collaborative relationships on and off campus to address leading questions of regional and national importance.
“The new center is a validation of what we have already been doing and adds an additional layer of structure and organization to these efforts,” said Dr. Brian Cross, assistant vice provost and director of the Center for Interprofessional Collaboration. “With its creation comes a new organizational structure as well as vision, mission, values statements and a strategic plan that speak to our commitment to using team-based principles to improve the culture of education, health and community.”
ETSU currently has two models of IPE engagement for students: a two-year longitudinal program that students complete together in-person in interprofessional teams and a one-year program that students complete fully online. Approximately 750 students and 90 faculty members from across the five health professions colleges are currently part of the IPE curricular experiences.
Cross is looking forward to several new developments in ETSU’s IPE program, including the introduction of a third curriculum model, which will launch soon, and an increased emphasis on community engagement.
“We hope that our next steps are taking these foundational learners who have been through this one- or two-year process and formalize them into teams that will take what they have learned and serve the community,” Cross said. “We already do this at events such as the Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinics and through our Street Medicine Interest Group (SMIG) that serves people who are experiencing homelessness, but we want to do it more and in a more structured way.”
Cross is also excited about the eventual construction of a new, 60,000-square-foot Integrated Health Services Building, which was approved in Gov. Bill Lee’s budget this year. The new building will be constructed on ETSU’s 30-acre portion of Innovation Park and will bring together clinicians as well as undergraduate, graduate and professional students to provide interprofessional care for the community.
“As we enter the 10th year of this process of formalizing our IPE efforts, we have so much to look forward to,” Cross said. “I want to thank all the people who have come on the journey and who have contributed to this effort. The Center for Interprofessional Collaboration is a validation of the value that our university places on interprofessional education and the hard work that our faculty have put in to get to this point.”
To learn more about the Center for Interprofessional Collaboration, visit etsu.edu/ahsc/ipe/.