Interprofessional education occurs when learners of multiple health, social and patient  care professions learn about, from, and with each other to develop cohesive practices that improve health care and social well-being. At LAU, students from School of Arts & Sciences nutrition program, the Alice Ramez Chagoury School of Nursing, the School of Pharmacy, and the Gilbert & Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine participate in the Interprofessional Education (IPE) program.

Mission

The mission of the IPE program is to prepare health and nutrition professionals who have the attitudes, knowledge, skills and commitment required to function as effective collaborative team members in providing high quality, patient/client-centered care.

The IPE program builds on the curricula of LAU’s health and nutrition programs and uses a student-centered educational approach. The program partners with post-licensure professionals to foster life-long learning and creation of environments that support interprofessional health and nutrition care collaboration.

Program Objectives

The IPE program provides learning experiences for health and nutrition students in settings ranging from online sessions, classrooms to simulation lab and practice clinical settings related to the:

1. Value of inter-professional and intra-professional collaboration in providing high quality patient/client-centered care,
2. Specific knowledge and skills that various health and nutrition care professionals bring to the care of patients/clients,
3. Methods for promoting effective intra- and inter- communication, collaboration, and teamwork among health, social and patient care professionals,
4. Strategies of sharing and integrating evidence-based practice that draws on research and best practices from all health and nutrition care fields to improve patient/client care,
5. Knowledge and skills needed to develop and participate in intra- and interprofessional quality improvement activities, and
6. Incorporation of ethical standards of different health and nutrition care professionals, all to enhance health care outcomes and social well-being.

Learning Outcomes

Graduates of LAU’s health and nutrition care programs should be able to:

1. Recognize their own and other professionals’ expertise, roles, responsibilities and competence,
2. Use effective communication techniques with other professionals to effect change and resolve conflict when providing patient/client care,
3. Develop intraprofessional and interprofessional collaboration in health, social and patient care settings,
4. Make decisions with other professionals and the patient/client when planning and implementing health and social care,
5. Develop intraprofessional and interprofessional case conferences, team meetings, and quality improvement activities,
6. Demonstrate evidence-based interdisciplinary approaches to provide a safe environment for patients/clients and achieve good patient/client outcomes, and
7. Resolve ethical issues that arise in health and social care settings.

Work Group/Faculty

Faculty from the five LAU academic programs that prepare health and nutrition care professionals come together to plan and offer all IPE learning activities.

School of Arts & Sciences (Nutrition Program)

• Joelle Abi Kharma, M.P.H., RDN, Licensed Dietitian

Gilbert & Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine

• Wael Salame, M.D., Psychiatry, IPE Coordinator

Alice Ramez Chagoury School of Nursing

• Abed Al Wahab Al Firikh, M.S.N., CNRN
• Maha Habre, D.N.P., M.S.N., R.N., C.E.N.
• Zeina El-Jordi, M.S.N., R.N.

School of Pharmacy

• Aline Milane, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Naser Zaki Alsharif, Pharm.D., Ph.D., M.S.

Programs/ Learning Activities

The IPE Work Group/Faculty schedules IPE learning activities at the onset of every academic year. A yearly calendar was developed (Table 1) to streamline the process. Students are notified through their own school or department of the IPE activities they will be attending. The didactic sessions are held online in both asynchronous and synchronous fashion (see below). Practice IPE learning activities enable students to transfer what they have learned about IPE to the actual care of patients and clients in clinical health care and community settings.

Didactic LAU-IPE Steps

The Lebanese American University Interprofessional Education (LAU IPE) core sessions consist of three, 2-hour mandatory, extracurricular and longitudinal workshops (IPE200, IPE300 and IPE400), offered throughout the curriculum of health and nutrition students (i.e. pharmacy, medicine, nursing and nutrition). The series is equivalent to 15 contact hours, and delivered over two or three years, depending on the profession. Students from different professions are grouped together by program level (IPE200: M1, N1, P1 and Nutrition seniors; IPE300: M2, Nursing Interns, BSN2, P2; IPE400: M3, BSN3, P3 and Nutrition interns) based on their amount of clinical experience and familiarity with interdisciplinary practice.

So, Core 1 (IPE200) includes students who have not yet had any clinical learning experience regardless of their class year. Core 2 (IPE300) and 3 (IPE400) includes students who are enrolled in clinical experience. All core sessions follow the same model: students will have to prepare for each session by watching prerecorded videos. The sessions will then be given online by a facilitator (around 12 - 15 per group). The students will then be subdivided in small mixed groups and given a case to solve using the tools given in the videos. This design has been chosen to increase the interaction between students from the different schools and trigger effective communication and problem solving.

• IPE200: Introduction and communication tools
• IPE300: Teamwork and conflict management
• IPE400: Ethics in an interprofessional approach

Practice IPE

Proposed IPE elective sessions will be offered on blackboard starting AY 2023-24.

Contact Information

For more information, visit the IPE website or contact ipe@lau.edu.lb

or

Naser Zaki Alsharif, Pharm.D., Ph.D., M.S., IPE Chair
Naser.alsharif@lau.edu.lb

Wael Salameh, MD, Assistant Professor, IPE Coordinator
wael.salame@lau.edu.lb