Thinking About Our IMPACT: Part I

Part I:  What is IMPACT?

Founded on principles of interprofessional education and practice, the Institute is now ready to live into its next generation of education and excellence.   

 Dr. Mary Knab is ready to launch an entirely new curriculum for entry level students in the masters programs in Nursing, Speech-Language Pathology and the doctoral and masters programs in Physical Therapy, starting in September.  A team  of three faculty members (Gail Gall, Chuck Jeans, Laura Plummer) have created the first course for the program to be launched next week .  The new program, called "IMPACT PRACTICE" is a two year curriculum that focuses on team based learning and leadership, ethics, and interprofessionalism. (IMPACT is an acronym for Interprofessional Model for Patient-and Client-Centered Teams).   Over 250 students starting at the Institute this week (along with the DPT students who started last June) will be assigned to groups of 10, with each group including students from each of our programs.   Over the next two years, each group will study professional formation, ethics, and leadership together and will experience interprofessionalism as they experience their  own professional education.  This "co-curriculum" runs side by side with each of our entry level graduate programs.   

The Institute academic leaders (deans, program directors) have all been part of this discussion and have embraced it wholeheartedly.  I believe that as this program rolls out it will be a model for others looking to design curricula that address the critical issue of interprofessional education and practice.   Thanks to the Center for Interprofessional studies and Innovation (CIPSI) under the leadership of Dr. Peter Cahn, the hard work and creativity of Mary Knab, and the entire IHP community for embracing this huge effort.  It will clearly have an IMPACT on all of us.

In the next blog post we will discuss what IMPACT means to the IHP and to the education of health professionals for the future. And in the final blog of this three part series we will discuss the future of interprofessional education at the IHP.