Approved by IPE EC on January 13, 2022
Endorsed by Provost’s Office on January 21, 2022
Endorsed by Health Sciences Council on January 28, 2022
Download a PDF of the full strategic blueprint
Executive Summary
The Michigan Center for Interprofessional Education (C-IPE) established a strong foundation at the University of Michigan during its first six years of existence, implementing dozens of IPE experiences, investing in research and innovative teaching, producing scholarly publications, and engaging a broad community of interested faculty. The successes of the startup “First Phase” have been impressive, but what has not been addressed is the following question that is at the core of the mission of the Center: “Does IPE improve the quadruple aims of health (better health, better patient experience, lower cost, and improved provider well-being)?”
To address this question, the Executive Committee (EC) of the C-IPE (members listed below) determined that the “Next Phase” of the C-IPE must be driven by a single goal: Innovating and Implementing IPE at U-M to improve the quadruple aims of health.* While the 10 schools that participate in the C-IPE have highly variable needs, resources, and contexts, this singular goal and shared mission is unifying for each school. Further, the schools share a determination to focus on building better teams as the key link to improving the quadruple aims of health, supported by the research literature. The C-IPE must now deliberately lead the development of initiatives towards this aim.
Accomplishing this goal will require these 5 interconnected strategies
(1) The Core Curriculum: defining and scaling the IPE “core” for students at University of Michigan,
identifying the relevant students for each school, and determining requirements for the core so that all students have an appropriate foundation in IPE to perform in teams. Innovation should drive this strategy with consideration of online and hybrid models of learning, including the development of MOOCs, badging, and a certificate program.
(2) Experiential Innovation: launching a suite of experiential IPE pilots that can scale and, as a whole, will address key needs for learning in the practice and community setting for students of the health professional schools and colleges. Each pilot will focus on teams in healthcare (in the practice setting) and/or health (in the community setting, working on social determinants).
(3) Intentional Measurement and Research: implementing valid assessment tools in our IPE experiences that measure outcomes reliably and consistently. The data will inform learner development, program evaluation, research, and ultimately be able to lead to an understanding of IPE’s impact on learning, healthcare practice and health outcomes.
(4) Educator Development: developing and implementing programs drawn from the identified needs for faculty and practitioner IPE educators in both teaching and assessment. The reach of these programs will lead to a sustained IPE Community of Practice and Scholars.
(5) Systems-Based Problem Solving: Establish a workgroup that will address the most pressing challenges to our goal and strategies. “Administrative innovation” will be required to help enable the future state.
This described path is ambitious, but necessary, and comes with several high-level challenges:
- The current state of practice and administrative structures may inhibit true IPE transformation. As such, the “Next Phase” Strategic Blueprint must be driven by innovation, creativity, and experimentation, with a focus on implementation and iteration.
- As a lean Center, achieving the goal will require recruiting many more faculty, and building extensive partnerships to launch innovative IPE experiences and develop the evidence base for its impact on health. These partners and faculty exist and, in preliminary discussions (e.g., with CRLT, IHPI, Ginsberg, Michigan Medicine), have expressed great interest in working with the C-IPE on these initiatives. But it will require deliberate, intentional recruitment to move our strategies forward, at a time when most units and faculty are under stress.
- Resources are tight. There are specific opportunities for building a more sustainable financial model for the C-IPE during the Next Phase. The options range from partnering on research grants, seeking support from foundations, engaging in development and donor discussions about the value of team-based care, and revenue generation from online models of learning. We will need to prioritize efforts around initiatives that can both advance our strategies and improve the sustainability of the C-IPE.
- Through extensive discussions with regional and national leaders, the C-IPE is known for being an engaged contributor to this field, but not a leader. We must use this Next Phase to innovate and lead nationally. Our opportunities are numerous, with experiential IPE, measurement and research, and innovative pedagogies emerging as potential future points of distinction for the Michigan Center for IPE.
The Strategic Blueprint is presented as a description of our proposed work for this Next Phase for the C-IPE.
View the three chapters of the C-IPE Next Phase
- Chapter 1: Renewed Mission, Vision and Values for the Next Phase is presented here, developed and endorsed by the Executive Committee for the C-IPE.
- Chapter 2: Detailed description for each of the 5 strategies for the Next Phase. After a summary, each strategy is described with respect to its Aims, Challenges, and Key Next Steps for the first 18 months (January 2022 – June 2023). It was felt that this was the optimal timeframe within which initiatives could be planned (6 months), implemented (6-9 months) and studied (3-6 months).
- Chapter 3: The Path Forward describes the C-IPE infrastructure required to do the work of the Next Phase. Each of the 5 strategies will map to a specific workgroup, requiring carefully constructed teams. Each workgroup will report to the Executive Committee (EC), advised by a Faculty Advisory Committee and a Student Advisory Committee.
Throughout this journey, the work of this Next Phase will require that the EC communicate transparently and continuously on our progress with the Health Sciences Council (HSC) and Provost’s Office. It is also anticipated that the Next Phase Strategic Blueprint will benefit from extensive socialization within the schools and colleges, to promote awareness and understanding of this movement. We are enthusiastic to work with leadership to present regularly to the faculty, staff and students within each school and college, discussing this work, providing updates, and inviting input along the way.
The ecosystem of innovation, teamwork and education for better health will motivate our work together, with a desire to grow our Community of Practice and Scholars across all three campuses at the University of Michigan. As with any transformative movement, this will take time; patience will be our greatest gift so that our work is enduring and impactful.
Developed and endorsed with enthusiasm for this “Next Phase,”
The Michigan Center for IPE Executive Committee
*Note: since the approval of the “Next Phase” Strategic Blueprint, the Michigan Center for Interprofessional Education transitioned from the use of the quadruple aims of health to the quintuple aims of health.