Elizabeth Swann has worked as a healthcare educator since 1997. In addition to her role at Nova Southeastern, she serves as the Chair for ASAHP’s Interprofessional Committee which is organizing this year’s Regional Summit. In the 30 years Swann has worked in Health Professions, she has seen huge changes and implementation in IPEC core competencies with a focus on interprofessional integration and clinical readiness.
She began her career in athletic training education working alongside a wide range of specialists and student-athletes each week. Early on, she assumed that this kind of interprofessional collaboration was standard across all professions, but as her career progressed, she realized that was not always the case. Since then, she has dedicated her work to preparing graduates to succeed in today’s complex healthcare environment - an approach that closely reflects the mission and priorities of ASAHP.
Q: What will happen at ASAHP’s Regional Summit on May 20?
Elizabeth Swann (ES): It’s a highly interactive day that happens simultaneously throughout our six regional hubs from across the country. Each hub brings together academic leaders, clinicians, faculty, healthcare partners and clinical preceptors, and has their own facilitated discussions about workforce readiness and interprofessional collaborative practice. Evidence based research supports the structure of these meetings. We've also created an engagement model that crosses over industry partners and academic experts to allow a fluid conversation and shared priorities when we're in the same room. A couple of years ago, we learned that many partners in the room were not familiar with version three of the IPEC core competencies. As a result, one of our actionable items was to determine how best to roll out an effective education or advocacy conversation that focuses on the importance of teamwork in healthcare.
What makes it unique is that those local conversations then roll up into our National Exchange where all six hubs are connected virtually and share insights and strategies on what happened at each site. The focus of the National Exchange is on actionable items that we can share and implement, not just locally, but nationally.
Q: What exactly IS an IPEC core competency?
ES: “IPEC” stands for “Interprofessional Education Collaborative.” It’s a group of twenty-one national health professions associations that come together to work on a core set of competencies that all healthcare professions should be ready to act on. These behaviors include communication and teamwork, roles and responsibilities, and values and ethics.
Q: Why did you choose the theme From Classrooms to Care Teams: Workforce-Ready Graduates for this year’s summit?
ES: I believe the title reflects a key challenge that we're seeing nationally; that students often learn some of the behaviors or professional skills in a classroom but it’s challenging to practice teamwork immediately when they get to clinical settings. We know there needs to be an emphasis on the authentic practice environments while understanding that there's a transition point that we need to prepare graduates to be functional on a team. We also want the care team to embrace onboarding or a professional development process that can bridge that gap from expectations on the academic side over to the industry side.
Q: Why do you think it’s so critical to get healthcare industry and academic partners in the same room for a day?
ES: We are preparing the same workforce, just from different vantage points. As we bring these groups together, we hear directly from each audience and can gain direct insight, whether it's curricular or a shared innovation, of how to better align a partnership. Ultimately, we want our graduates to be better clinicians. When you have different people at the table in this round table format, it allows for a beautiful conversation. Each site has an advantage by meeting someone from across town or a different industry, as well as participating in a national conversation where we can implement our action items.
Q: What benefits do you think the Regional Summit has contributed to both the healthcare industry and health professions education?
ES: We learn so much on the curriculum side, and sometimes make refinements based on what we learn from a clinical site. An example of this is from a Regional Summit, we hosted in Fort Lauderdale a few years back. Our physical therapy (PT) program was looking for a hospice or end of life rotation, and because of the Summit, someone from PT literally sat next to someone at the hospital who was a nurse on the hospice floor.
Because of that connection, we were able to start doing rotations there, literally the next semester! That was an immediate success story and we always try to reinforce to the Hubs the importance of grassroots marketing. You never know when an opportunity might present itself that can have a direct impact on patient care.
Q: The Regional Summits are an initiative of the Interprofessional Committee which you chair. How is the Regional Summit a natural extension of the committee’s work?
ES: I'm so proud of our interprofessional committee because we intentionally have members from different professions and different universities. In every committee meeting, we learn from, about, and with each other which allows us to share best practices. Now, the Regional Summit is allowing us to take that committee practice to a national level and connect education, workforce, and scholarship in a tangible way.
Q: What drew you to the role of committee chair and what else does this committee do?
ES: The committee itself is the intersection between the interprofessional education and practical experience. As educators, we guide our students through assignments and clinical rotations, while still focusing on a holistic health system level change that has the greatest impact for patients. As a committee, we also look for opportunities to recognize scholarship and advance collaboration. The Interprofessional Committee supports an innovation grant and we have an award that recognizes excellence in interprofessional education, among others. I was originally drawn to join this committee because I see it as a platform for action and impact. I’m excited now to serve as the chair, to continue that legacy.
Q: Anything you’d like to add?
ES: I want to acknowledge the Regional Summit team, in addition to my colleagues on the interprofessional committee who have leaned in and really stepped up in learning more about the organization, as well as interprofessional education as we plan the summit and as we deliver and then look at the outcomes. It's truly a year-round process, a team of about 20 individuals from multiple professions, multiple universities. It’s a support group but is really more like a family, in the way we support each other in what we're trying to accomplish.