An Evaluation of Interprofessional Knowledge and Attitudes in Graduate Students from Six Programs in Health Sciences after an Interprofessional Education Workshop Experienc

Interprofessional Education (IPE) occurs when two or more disciplines learn about, from, and with each other to provide interprofessional patient-centered care which ultimately improves patient health care outcomes (WHO, 2010). Through collaboration, students not only bring their own expertise, but are given an opportunity to learn what the other disciplines can offer for the same patient. Although IPE's importance is highly recognized, many universities do not engage in IPE practice because of scheduling difficulties, lack of faculty involvement, implementation challenges for various levels of competency, and uncertainty of how to measure the effectiveness of IPE activities (Johnson et al., 2015). Ongoing efforts are being made at The University of Texas of El Paso (UTEP) to incorporate IPE into disciplines' curriculum. This pilot project evaluated an IPE workshop's impact on Health Sciences graduate/doctoral program's potential increases from pre- to post-test measures, and different patterns of knowledge and/or experience between programs. The pilot project also evaluated whether the workshop met the participants' expectations. The present workshop was cost effective, as noted by the increases of pre- to post- test scores in all programs. The results from this pilot project pose a significant importance for the implementation of IPE in Health Sciences curriculum.