New director of UW CIPE focuses on health-care collaboration

As the new director of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, Dr. Hossein Khalili is motivated by the opportunity to impact health outcomes through collaborative education and practice.

He says CIPE’s focus on team-based learning and practice will provide UW–Madison health sciences students purposefully-designed interprofessional learning and socialization, both of which will better prepare them for team-based practice.

“Foundational exposure to students from other professions,” Dr. Khalili explains, “can foster greater collaboration later when those students graduate, earn licensure, and enter practice.”

Since arriving in April Dr. Khalili has spent the first few months of his tenure laying out plans and gathering input to direct the CIPE’s next steps. The Center is currently completing its strategic planning and assembling task forces comprised of campus and community partners as well as students who will help guide and advance its work.

Educated as a nurse, Khalili was previously a professor at Fanshawe College School of Nursing and adjunct faculty for Western University in London, Ontario. He has published broadly on interprofessional practice and education and is the co-founder and co-lead of the Global Network for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice Research.

Khalili also serves as a board member of the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative and as a member of the leadership team with the Global Confederation for Interprofessional Practice and Education.

The UW CIPE was founded in 2016 as an independent center to develop and coordinate a program of interprofessional practice and education to enhance collaborative practices across the health professions. It is supported by the Office of the Provost as well as the Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Veterinary Medicine, with its office located at the School of Nursing in Signe Skott Cooper Hall.

Interprofessional practice and education (IPE) refers to collaboration across health professions, in which health care professionals from different disciplines interact and learn as a team rather than as independent groups. The purpose and value for IPE is clear across the health professions at UW: it can improve health outcomes.

It is documented, including within the three seminal publications by the Institute of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine, that quality, team-based care improves health outcomes. School of Nursing Dean Linda D. Scott notes the role of research as a factor in IPE, and in identifying the right fit for the UW CIPE director. “Hossein’s belief in the value of interprofessional education and collaborative practice is deep, and it is grounded in research and scholarship around designing, implementing, and evaluating interprofessional, collaborative practice and education.”

School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert N. Golden expresses a shared commitment to interprofessional education, stating, “The School of Medicine and Public Health is deeply invested in interprofessional education. For example, our ForWard Curriculum, implemented in 2016, emphasizes a highly integrated, interdisciplinary approach that includes early immersion within interprofessional clinical teams.” He adds, “We must prepare tomorrow’s health care professionals to serve effectively on high-functioning teams that promote patient safety, quality of care, and optimal health outcomes. Additionally, we must offer opportunities for current practitioners to deepen their skills in interprofessional communication and partnership.”

For more information visit www.cipe.wisc.edu.