Pharmacy Academy Newsletter
by Heather B. Congdon, PharmD, CDE, FNAP
In today’s collaborative, patient-centered health care environment, studies have demonstrated that team-based care improves patient-related clinical outcomes, especially for patients with chronic medical conditions and historically inequitable access to health care. As such, healthcare practitioners need to have the knowledge and skills to function capably in interprofessional teams. An international movement to offer interprofessional education (IPE) to health professions students has taken hold in response to this workforce need for collaborative practice. Student participation in IPE activities for health professions disciplines is paramount to preparing them for team-based care.
While many two-year and four-year institutions of higher education in Maryland offer an array of IPE experiences for their students, these experiences are often elective and can be sporadic. Relatively few health professions students will participate in IPE activities with the duration and intensity necessary to build competency. Moreover, even with robust IPE programs, there is a need to help students “connect the dots” across their IPE experiences and help make their competency development more visible to themselves and to prospective employers.
To address this challenge and help ensure that all health professions students graduate with core competencies needed for the provision of team-based care, an IPE working group from across two-year and four-year colleges and universities in Maryland have embarked upon the creation of an IPE Digital Badging system. An IPE Digital Badging system will provide a means by which faculty and staff can align existing and newly developed IPE activities with nationally recognized IPE competencies and ensure sustained opportunities for students to practice and improve. Just as importantly, an IPE Digital Badging system will provide the means by which students can more clearly communicate their achievement of IPE competencies to employers.
The Maryland IPE Digital Badging system will capitalize on the ability of digital badges to signal evidence of students’ competency as well as the institution’s validation of students’ proficiency in a given competency area. This allows employers and others more insight into exactly what the badge earner accomplished to achieve that badge. Additionally, because they are openly accessible, these badges can be shared through digital portfolios and social and professional networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Badges are also “stackable,” which means that students can display earned badges as they go and follow a trajectory to higher levels of competency. This organizing principle for conveying levels of competency to others aligns well with existing tiered frameworks for IPE skill development.
The IPE Digital Badging system can benefit institutions, students, and employers by providing a mechanism to increase intentionality and transparency across curricular and co-curricular offerings. Moreover, digital badges complement traditional credentials by giving students a way to communicate to employers what they know and are able to do in relation to important skills surrounding team-based care. In turn, badges help employers improve fit and match between graduates and employment opportunities.
To learn more about the Maryland IPE Digital Badging project, please contact Heather Congdon at [email protected].
