IMPACT Practice
Overview
Health professionals globally have identified that interprofessional collaboration is key to the delivery of safe and effective patient-centered care. Growing from its commitment to educate clinicians prepared to help lead change in this direction, the Institute has developed an enhanced interprofessional curriculum — the IMPACT Practice.
IMPACT Practice engages students in a series interprofessional courses and activities in which they learn with, from, and about one another. Learning activities are designed to facilitate student development of Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice as defined by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative. The four competency domains are: values and ethics, interprofessional communication, teams/teamwork, and roles and responsibilities.
The goal of IMPACT Practice is to collaborate with the Institute’s programs to prepare graduates to function effectively as members of interprofessional collaborative teams and lead the change that will positively impact the systems in which they practice and every patient and client they encounter.
IMPACT Description
IMPACT Practice is a required component of all Institute entry-level graduate programs. Students receive their first introduction to IMPACT Practice during orientation when they participate in a common reading through which they begin to discuss the person and family/support system at the center of the care they will provide. Then, starting in their first fall semester, students enroll in three one-credit interprofessional courses integrated into their programs of study.
HP 818 IMPACT I: Interprofessional Practice provides foundational knowledge and exposure to the core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice as students learn together in interprofessional teams of 6-7 members.
HP 819 IMPACT II: Interprofessional Projects provides opportunities for IMPACT teams to grow in the core competencies for interprofessional practice. Guided by a faculty mentor, teams engage in learning activities and projects drawn from a menu that includes community and health care delivery system exposure, team-building simulation experiences, and other of the Institute’s interprofessional extracurricular activities.
HP 821 IMPACT III: Interprofessional Ethics anchors the IMPACT curriculum by delving more deeply into the values and ethics that underlie professional practice and providing students with tools for managing ethical challenges they may encounter in practice.