A Message from the NAP Vice President of Professional Development
by A. Lynn Williams, PhD, CCC-SLP, ASHA Honors, FASHA, BCS-CL, FNAP
Dear Members and Colleagues,
I hope this newsletter update finds you enjoying summer with fun ways to stay cool in this heat. I am happy to bring you the latest developments from the NAP Professional Development Committee. We are committed to fostering a dynamic community of interprofessional learning as each of our three subcommittees focus on their goals for the coming year. The goals for the Professional Development Committee for the 2024-2025 program year are focused on integrating the Strategic Interprofessional Initiative into our subcommittee work and include the following:
- Create a culture of collaboration by fostering opportunities for cross-academy connections within the National Academies of Practice in support of the Strategic Interprofessional Initiative
- Provide professional development opportunities through promotion of the Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice to the NAP membership
- Develop resources that would be useful to patients, clients, and caregivers in determining if they should receive care from an interprofessional team from a Social Determinants of Health lens
The Professional Development Committee has three subcommittees that have started addressing the above goals.
Academy Connections (Co-Chairs: LisaMarie Wands – Nursing; Puja Goel -- Speech-Language Pathology) Create a culture of collaboration by fostering opportunities for cross-academy connections within the National Academies of Practice in support of the Strategic Interprofessional Initiative.
- Develop a primer around the Social Determinants of Health by December 2024
- Establish a cross-academy team of 4-5 members to develop a graphic narrative book on the mission and vision of NAP under the editorship of Joe Zorek (timeline TBD)
- Format the created Social Determinants of Health primer for inclusion in the Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice by March 2025
Online Journal Club (Co-Chairs: Kimberly Clark -- Respiratory Care; Elena Umland -- Pharmacy) Provide professional development opportunities through promotion of the Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice to the NAP membership.
- Engage NAP membership via quarterly Beyond the Journal webinars
- Identify 4-6 potential articles for the 2025 quarterly journal club webinars by November 2024
- Identify NAP members to serve as moderators for the Beyond the Journal webinars
Patient Education Resources (Co-Chairs: Ellayne Ganzfried -- Speech-Language Pathology; Jenny Van Amburgh -- Pharmacy) Develop resources that would be useful to patients, clients, and caregivers in determining if they should receive care from an interprofessional team from a Social Determinants of Health lens.
- Explore additional resources with members across the academies that would be useful to patients, clients, and caregivers to ensure interprofessional care
- Seek feedback from members on the ’10 Most Critical Questions’ infographic and use it to round out the questions by September 2024
- Develop a plan for dissemination of the created resources by November 2024
- Explore and draft additional resources that would be useful to patients, clients, and caregivers to ensure interprofessional care by January 2025
The Forum Planning Committee is in full swing after a hugely successful 2024 Annual Forum this spring. Planning is being led by the very capable 2024 Annual Forum co-chairs Marty Sexton (Nursing) and Joe LaRochelle (Pharmacy). The Forum will be held in Washington, DC on March 13-15, 2025 with Capitol Hill visits on March 13 and educational programming on March 14-15.
To highlight NAP’s Strategic Interprofessional Initiative, the title for the 2025 Annual Meeting and Forum is Igniting Interprofessional Collaboration: Strategic Impact Starts with Us and the themes represent the four core areas of the Strategic Interprofessional Initiative:
- Health Communication/Health Literacy
- Overall Health and Wellbeing
- Evidence-based Screening and Prevention
- Healthcare Access and Quality
The Keynote Speakers Subcommittee (Co-Chairs: Amy Blue -- Dentistry; Julianne Ewen -- Nursing) received and ranked several excellent keynote speaker recommendations to identify the top two candidates.
Work is also progressing on the Networking Subcommittee (Co-Chairs: Gayle Timmerman – Nursing; Heather Case – Veterinary Medicine) in cross-collaboration with the Partnerships & Networking Committee to identify new sponsors with the goal to increase the number of sponsors to keep costs down for members.
The Abstracts Subcommittee (Co-Chairs: Andrea Zakrajsek – Occupational Therapy; Arthur Ko -- Nursing) developed descriptions for each of the four themes to provide guidance to potential authors in submitting abstracts.
The Service Project Subcommittee (Co-Chairs: Marc Taub -- Optometry; Kristen Reuter -- Social Work) will identify potential service projects within the DC community.
Finally, the Evaluation Subcommittee (Co-Chairs: Sherry Jimenez -- Physician; Angela Shoup -- Audiology) has reviewed the data from the 2024 Forum evaluations to identify opportunities to consider for improvement in the format of the 2025 Annual Forum.
As Vice President of Professional Development, I am grateful to the 50 members who serve on the three subcommittees, working diligently to develop the educational programming and professional development opportunities for cross-academy connections. I also want to thank each member of our NAP community for your passion for excellence and dedication to advancing interprofessional collaborative care. Because of you, NAP is a dynamic and inspiring association.
Kind regards,
