Development of a Dental School Strategic Plan to Inform Interprofessional Education

Abstract

Changes in U.S. health care delivery systems and Commission on Dental Accreditation standards provide impetus for interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice, but roadmaps for engaging dental and dental hygiene faculty to incorporate IPE in a systematic manner are limited. The purpose of this report is to describe the process for creating a strategy and gathering a variety of baseline data to use for determining objectives and metrics and the subsequent development of an IPE strategic plan at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill Adams School of Dentistry (SOD). SOD IPE committee members included representation from the UNC Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Business. A three‐phase framework was developed. Phase 1 (IPE assessment) was an internal environmental scan including a 2017 faculty survey, departmental mapping of IPE activities, comparison of UNC with national results on the IPE component of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) survey of dental school seniors (2016 graduating class), identification of faculty joint/adjunct appointments at other UNC schools, and a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis. Phase 2 (visioning) consisted of development of IPE mission, vision, and priorities. In Phase 3 (implementation), priorities were developed. Data‐gathering led to a strategic plan with three objectives: 1) increase faculty engagement and recognition, 2) develop predoctoral dentistry and dental hygiene IPE curricula, and 3) develop an infrastructure that supports IPE. Specific initiatives and activities, supporting metrics, and estimated costs were developed for each objective. The framework guided a systematic, transparent, and organized process for collecting and monitoring the evidence and directing activities. A three‐year strategic plan for IPE was developed in 2017, and implementation is ongoing.

A Report of the interdisciplinary education approach within the Universidad de La Frontera Dental Curriculum

“…Students have been shown to have gained a deeper understanding of the dentist role and the other health workers (Kersbergen et al, 2020) as well as a deeper understanding of collaboration resulting in better attitudes about interprofessional teamwork (Wang et al, 2019). Interprofessional collaborative practice has become widely applied in both public and private sectors as it allows to deliver more effective dental care and better use of resources (Weintraub et al, 2019). The Chilean public health system relies heavily on interprofessional teams to tackle the population health needs.…”

Dental educators’ views and knowledge of competencies required within a competency framework

“…If they are solely focused on their specific discipline, it may limit their appreciation of viewing the dental graduate as ready, for independent practice in the 21st century. 15 The competencies that were identified as required by dental graduates, were aligned with the AfriMEDS core competencies. Two of these competencies, namely, evidence-based dentistry, and private practice, were highlighted as core competencies in this current study; however, in AfriMEDS, only aspects of these are described.…”

“…There were limited discussions on collaboration, as a competency, as the participants reflected on the teaching of disciplines that occur in silos, referring to their own experiences, as teachers at the institution under scrutiny. Given the emergence and integration of inter-professional health education as a competency in dental education, 15 it was concerning that collaboration with the dental, or healthcare team was not discussed. This could have been influenced, in part, by the selection of the participants (module coordinators in clinical years) from the dentistry program only.…”