What's all the HIPE? A Healthcare Inter−Professional Education Experience for medical, nursing, occupational and physical therapy students

An innovative interdisciplinary chronic disease management curriculum was designed to bridge the gap of unmet needs in chronic illness care. The traditional “silo” approach to health professional training has a ripple effect in the health care setting. To address this issue in education, an interprofessional faculty group developed a two-year longitudinal chronic illness mentorship program for nursing, medical, occupational and physical therapy students (pharmacy and public health students will participate in Fall 2008) at an urban university.

Teams of either three or four students are linked with a Health Mentor, an individual living with chronic illness in the community. The interprofessional student team meets with their Health Mentor eight times over a two year period. Discussion topics include: Health Mentor's life history, health history, access to health care and system barriers, consumer expectations of health care providers, professionalism, polypharmacy and adverse drug reactions, self-management and patient education, safety and interdisciplinary plan of care. Team visits are followed by debriefing sessions, faculty-facilitated small groups and individual reflection papers. In Year 1, a total of 131 Health Mentors were recruited from physician practices, senior centers, retirement communities and community-based organizations. A total of 472 health professional students are participating in this community-based experience.

Feedback from small group faculty leaders and thematic analysis from the first student reflection papers revealed that students and mentors value interprofessional team learning, enjoy learning about the expertise of colleagues, and have developed an enhanced understanding of living with chronic illness by participating in this new curriculum.