Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’sSchool of Nursing, School of Pharmacy and Department of Speech Communication have been working collaboratively on a program to address interprofessionalism and cultural competency in health care patient communication. The program was funded through the SIUE Excellence in Undergraduate Education (EUE) grant program.
The program was organized in response to the lack of cultural competence in health care delivery that was addressed in Healthy People 2010, a national health promotion designed to increase the quality and years of healthy life of Americans. In order to help correct the problem, accreditation organizations for nursing and pharmacy expect higher education programs to produce practitioners who are prepared to serve diverse populations.
After months of collaboration in design, a two-day interprofessional education (IPE) program on culturally competent communication was held on February 5 and 12 in the SIUE Morris University Center. The approximate 160 participants in the two-day course were second year pharmacy students enrolled in health promotion literacy and sophomore nursing students enrolled in health assessment.
“We hope to create a sustainable IPE experience that will benefit future cohorts of nursing and pharmacy students,” said Dr. Min Liu, one of the four awardees of the grant and a speech communication instructor. “The project took an interdisciplinary approach to the content design, delivery and assessment processes of creating an effective IPE experience.”
“The faculty members involved will implement this program in future semesters,” said Liu. “We also hope to see more IPE initiatives involving the health professional programs at SIUE. Cultural competency and diversity initiatives have been well supported in both schools, and personally, I am hopeful that we will see more innovative programs like this in the future.”
Faculty team members involved with the program include: Dr. Min Liu, assistant professor from the department of Speech Communication, Dr. Rhonda Comrie, associate professor of primary care/health systems nursing in the School of Nursing, and Drs. Lakesha Butler and Terri Poirier, faculty members from the School of Pharmacy.