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 and from psychology come together to plan and offer all IPE learning activities.

School of Arts & Sciences

Nutrition Program

• Joelle Abi Kharma, MPH, Senior Instructor of Nutrition, ACEND Coordinator
• Marwa Fadlallah, MS, Instructor of Nutrition

Psychology Program

• Marie Anne El-Khoury, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Gilbert & Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine

• Aniella Abi Gerges, PhD, Associate Professor of Physiology
• Ruzanna Petrosyan, MD, PhD, MHPE, Assistant Professor

Alice Ramez Chagoury School of Nursing

• Maha Habre, DNP, MSN, RN, CEN, Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing
• Mahmoud Salam, PhD, MSN, RN, Assistant Professor
• Zeina El-Jordi, MSN, RN, Clinical Instructor

School of Pharmacy

• Aline Milane, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor (Coordinator)
• Mira El Masri, BS Pharm, Pharm.D., BCPS, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Nancy Fayad, PhD, Assistant Professor
• Naser Zaki Alsharif, Pharm.D., PhD, MS, Professor & Dean School of Pharmacy (Chair)

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 and by the coordinator of the IPE activities they will be attending. The didactic sessions are held in person. 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 core courses (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 reading a student handout and watching prerecorded videos. The sessions will then be held in person starting by a group orientation and then in small groups 12 – 15 students from the different programs. The sessions are facilitated by a faculty from across the disciplines. The students are given a case to solve using the information provided in the handout and 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

Each of the IPE core courses will also be available in Blackboard with an introduction to each session, student handouts and facilitator resources. Students are required to complete an assessment for each course and an evaluation survey for the session and facilitator.

Contact Information

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

or

Aline Milane, Pharm.D., Ph.D. (Coordinator)
aline.milane@lau.edu.lb

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