Institutional Collaboration to Accelerate Interprofessional Education

Evidence has been generated and synthesized to support enhanced outcomes in healthcare environments supportive of interprofessional practice. Despite the preponderance of evidence, many health professions education programs do not prepare their students for interprofessional practice. Multiple factors influence the integration of interprofessional education into a program’s curricular offerings including availability of potential partnering professions, conflicting schedules, lack of curricular alignment, and logistical challenges. This manuscript describes initiatives and innovations used to replace health profession and institutional silos with interprofessional and cross-institutional collaboration in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. While the initial point of connection involved the administrators and faculty members from Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center collaborating to create interprofessional training opportunities for health professions students, this collaboration continues to generate new innovations and cooperative initiatives. These initiatives include research projects supported by significant external funding awards and a decision by the leaders of the two institutions to collaborate to develop a new medical school.