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Saint Louis University's Interprofessional Education Program (SLU-IPE) started with interprofessional courses throughout the curricula of the health professional programs of the Edward and Margaret Doisy College of Health Sciences and the School of Nursing. The goal of SLU-IPE is to prepare graduates for interprofessional patient/client-centered practice, effective and efficient delivery of health care services, and advocacy for improvement of health and health services. In developing the SLU-IPE curriculum, faculty adopted the premise that IPE is needed to prepare graduates for interprofessional practice, which significantly improves the likelihood of patients attaining optimal health care outcomes. Other premises include that learning experiences, both didactic and practical, should be interactive and that interprofessional learning activities should occur throughout the length of the educational programs.

Improvement in the provision of health care is essential in a complex, diverse and changing system. Studies are beginning to indicate that interprofessional (IP) collaboration can be a means to help address this issue. Institutions that have programs in health professions develop Interprofessional Education (IPE) programs as a way to introduce and nurture the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for IP collaboration. It is expected that health professionals with this training will serve patients/clients and communities with safe, effective, timely, efficient, equitable and patient/client-centered care that leads to decreased medical errors, reduced fragmentation of care, and optimal health outcomes. Saint Louis University developed an IPE Program that utilizes a sophisticated integrated curriculum featuring courses that intentionally address teamwork in patient/client-centered care. There were challenges in integrating the IPE curriculum into the University's many diverse programs in the health professions. The purpose of this paper is to present the process by which IPE was integrated into the curricula of 8 different health professional programs. Benefits, opportunities, challenges and strategies of this process are presented and discussed. It is expected that this change in culture will produce improved patient/client outcomes.

Background: An interprofessional faculty group analyzed a critical reflection assignment of students in a service-learning practicum interprofessional education (IPE) course. Students were from ten programs: physical therapy, occupational therapy, nuclear medicine technology, radiation therapy, athletic training, nursing, investigative medical science, cytotechnology, nutrition and dietetics, and clinical laboratory science. Research questions investigated what the assignments revealed about students’ application of beliefs, emotions, and behaviours, and if course objectives were met.Methods and Findings: This qualitative study retrospectively analyzed one critical reflection from the course conducted in 2011. Researchers selected a stratified sample of 40 assignments from a population of 278. Nine major themes emerged: achieving IPE outcomes, engaging in team process, learning culture/community engagement, being client/patient centred, becoming aware of behaviours, experiencing barriers, articulating beliefs, connecting with course objectives, and expressing emotions.Conclusions: In an IPE practicum course, transformative learning was evident. Students articulated beliefs, emotions, and behaviours related to interprofessional teamwork. Students expressed detailed understanding of team processes. For future research, critical reflection assignments were useful to assess student beliefs, emotions, and behaviours in a practicum course. We suggest studying practice among health professionals who have experienced IPE compared with those who have not had IPE in their professional curricula.

This article describes a model for survey development used by the Department of Physical Therapy at Saint Louis University to assess the extent to which the program prepares students for a career as physical therapists. From a review of departmental documents including mission and philosophy statements and curriculum goals, eight performance outcomes (e.g., competence as a general practitioner, leadership, ethics, attitude for service, etc.) and two program characteristics (curricuum and program atmosphere) were determined. External documents including accreditation criteria for graduate performance were also reviewed and found to be consistent with the identified characteristics. Based on these findings, items for three surveys were developed and assessed. A 1-year alumni survey solicited feedback on the graduates' perceptions of their educational preparedness for clinical practice. The graduates' employers then were surveyed for an assessment of the graduates' job performance. A 3-year alumni survey followed up to reassess the graduates' perceptions of their educational preparedness and to track the alumni's activities since graduation. Other programs in physical therapy and other health care disciplines can use this model to develop valid survey instruments to assess their program's effectiveness.

Appropriate collaboration and communication among health professionals is viewed as increasingly important in meeting the challenges of today's health care system. Student socialization to interdisciplinary practice is thought to be facilitated through interdisciplinary academic and clinical learning experiences during the educational program. The purpose of this article is to identify factors commonly cited as facilitating and inhibiting interdisciplinary education, to provide insight for the development of successful interdisciplinary education projects.