SPLICE Initiative – Managing Challenges of Interprofessional, Clinic-based Experiences

The SPLICE initiative developed a collaborative practice curriculum for a wide range of types of students, residents, and clinical staff in ambulatory care settings. In addition to providing educational curricula, we have facilitated interprofessional clinical rotations at a local FQHC with a focus on optimizing the interprofessional experience in the clinic setting for both clinic staff, medical and pharmacy residents, and advanced practice and medical students. We worked collaboratively with the clinic leaders and faculty to ensure that learners’ experiences were appropriate for their profession, were aligned with program learning outcomes, and included an interprofessional component. Additionally, we started a Chronic Disease Continuity Clinic at the FQHC in February of 2019 in which advanced practice students (nurse practitioners and physician assistants) work in partnership with primary care residents to provide collaborative, team-based care for patients with diabetes.



The development of the interprofessional clinical experiences has been the work of three years, with our second cohort of students completing their rotations this Spring. We have experienced many of the challenges widely described in the literature and expressed by others about developing interprofessional collaborative practice clinical rotations including coordination of schedules for all team members, shifting clinic staffing, lack of clinic leadership support, and staff buy-in. This lightening talk will focus on outlining common hurdles to this type of experience and sharing solutions to address these challenges. By sharing our experiences, we hope to help others successfully implement interprofessional clinical rotations with their students or at their health centers.



Learners will leave the talk with; 1) an overview of the challenges of developing and implementing interprofessional clinical rotations in a clinic-based environment and 2) strategies to address these challenges.



SPLICE is funded through a HRSA Primary Care Training Enhancement Grant #T0BHP3002