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Division of Health Sciences Centre for Interprofessional Education

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IPE strategy

The Division of Health Sciences has a vision to "establish Otago as a national leader in interprofessional education across the health professions."

To achieve that vision, the IPE Strategic Plan (2016–2019) has been implemented to establish frameworks and infrastructure necessary to support our staff to grow IPE across the Division.

From 2020, the Division moved into a second cycle of strategic goals, set out in:

Specifically, these are policy recommendations for Otago, to support a high-quality, integrated and longitudinal IPE curriculum across the pre-registration health professional programmes – including the following components:

  • Overarching aims for IPE
  • Common IPE language
  • Variable IPE activity components in a sequential curriculum
  • Defined set of curriculum learning outcomes
  • Expectations for student attainment, collectively and individually
  • Guidelines for IPE student assessment and IPE activity evaluation
  • Capacity to adapt and respond to the context, needs, opportunities and partnerships of IPE
  • Recognition for staff contribution to IPE teaching
  • Quality systems to accredit IPE activities, record student IPE credits, and evaluate the IPE integrated curriculum.

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IPE Centre

The Division of Health Sciences Centre for Interprofessional Education ("IPE Centre") has been established and charged with implementing the strategy. The IPE Centre is a virtual entity consisting of the following roles:

  • IPE Director
  • IPE Deputy Director
  • IPE Campus Leads:
    • IPE Leads Dunedin
    • IPE Lead UOC
    • IPE Lead UOW
  • IPE Centre Manager
  • IPE Complex Rural Immersion Programmes Manager
  • Administrators Client Services

With oversight by the Divisional Executive, the Centre sets a direction and work programme to support and foster the development of high-quality IPE on all campuses and across health professional programmes, faculties, and schools. The current focus is on pre-registration programmes, with an intention to foster IPE in postgraduate programmes over time.

Contact details for the IPE Centre

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Progress and timeline towards strategic objectives

2022 focus

  • Develop more systematic means of establishing ongoing IPE perspective in the curriculum structures of all Schools in the Division.
  • Maintain all learning activities that are going well and can be delivered during the pandemic
  • Prioritise development of new IPE learning activities in clinical workplaces; experience has shown this requires significant practical support from IPE Leaders and IPE administrators as well as specific modest funding of DHB/Health NZ staff for IPE teaching roles.
  • Welcome offers by other Departments, Schools and partners to independently offer or partner in leading IPE activities, e.g. as proved successful in 2021 for IPE Professional Ethics development (Bioethics) and IPE Cancer Care and Life-limiting Illness in Midcentral (partnering with staff from Massey University)
  • Stocktake IPE learning activities according to IP competencies and levels of learning, i.e. map competencies of registered, accredited IPE learning activities against the six IPE competencies and the three levels of learning (complexity) agreed in the IPE Quality Framework; identify gaps or over-supply in learning activities that are designed to deliver particular competencies and begin the work of addressing these.
  • Sustain IPE research at current levels.
  • Seek any potential ways to break the bottleneck of insufficient funding, e.g. grants, research proposals, philanthropy with the assistance of Divisional Development arm.

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Focus in previous years

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IPE governance and linkages

IPE governance 2021_amended1

  • The IPE Director is a member of the Health Sciences Divisional Executive, facilitating Divisional strategic oversight of the IPE Centre and the Health Sciences Division's IPE activities. (Prior to 2021, a Divisional IPE Governance Group (DIPEGG) served this function.)
  • The IPE Leaders Group - comprising the IPE Director, IPE Divisional Lead, IPE Campus Leads and IPE Centre Manager - provides leadership and strategic support to IPE Campus Groups as required.
  • IPE Campus Groups and/or task teams serve as IPE leadership teams on each campus (Dunedin, UOC, UOW).

IPE in the Division occurs within a matrix of linkages and relationships, including linkages between:

  • The IPE Centre and its divisional and campus-level governance structures
  •  The IPE Centre and IPE activities and teams based at various campus and regional sites, as well as complex rural immersion activities, i.e. the Tairāwhiti Interprofessional Education Programme and Te Tai Poutini IPE Programmes
  • IPE activities involving the University of Otago and other community and institutional partners.

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