This session explores the online interprofessional education (IPE) model developed by VIPE (the Virtual Interprofessional Education collaborative), and VIPE faculty’s efforts to bring focus to the public and population health dimensions of their case study experiences for health sector students from over 30 academic institutions across the globe.
The VIPE (Virtual Interprofessional Education) initiative is a multi-country, multi-institutional, online interprofessional education collaborative that continues to grow rapidly, serving over 5000 students in 40 health sector disciplines, across 30 academic institutions located domestically and internationally since 2018. VIPE experiences address key Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies and bring focus to public health related dimensions of the health issues contained within each case study.
The VIPE core faculty have long held that interprofessional education is an ideal setting to introduce both clinical and non-clinical students to public health concepts (starting with social determinants of health) that every practitioner can and should be utilizing to enhance their delivery of care and decision making. This initiative has now given thousands of students an opportunity to become stronger members of the health sector workforce by 1.) increasing their competence in performing as a member of diverse interprofessional teams, and 2.) to consider key public health principles as a part of their approach to addressing the health challenges presented to them. Our VIPE students are taking their newly developed interprofessional skills and public health knowledge out into practice, and making enhanced contributions in communities across the United States and globally as a result.
We have brought further focus to the macro, meso, and micro levels of health issues such as the opioid epidemic by designing a case study with multiple snapshots of different health sector roles and viewpoints on the same issue (including clinicians, treatment center director, public health administrator). This approach allows students health sector studnets from various roles to explore what collaboration and policy at the internal, local, state and federal level can do to potentially mitigate strains and stressors. In our synchronous IPE case study sessions with students, we as faculty model the types of professional behaviors required to create a psychologically safe environment to discuss challenging realities like the ones outlined in our virtual case studies.