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Pioneer Valley Interprofessional Practice and Education Collaborative (PV-IPEC) Programs 2024-2025

Fall 2025

PURCH Population & Community Health Clerkship at UMMS-Baystate

TBD

The Population & Community Health Clerkship (PCHC) is a team-based, interprofessional, community engaged experience. Students are placed in small groups directed by academic and community preceptors from a range of professions and disciplines. Each team’s experience is unique. The overarching goal of the PHC is to provide relevant real-world context as students expand their understanding of public and population health concepts. In this clerkship, students will:

  • Collect, synthesize, and explain relevant population-level data
  • Identify the interprofessional team members who care for the population
  • Explore ways organizations advocate for, and with, a population to improve social and structural determinants of health
  • Apply knowledge toward meaningful service in a community

Learn More: PowerPoint Presentation to PV-IPEC Activities Committee on June 29, 2021

How to get involved or register students, contact: Lisa Clinton (Lisa.Clinton@baystatehealth.org)

This is a program of UMass Medical School and Baystate Health Population Based Urban & Rural Community Health Program.

Student Blog: Beyond Medicine: A Deeper Dive into Health Disparities and Social Determinants of Health

Interprofessional Viewing of the “To Err is Human” Documentary

October 8, 2025 (Holyoke Community College)/ October 22, 2025 (virtual)

Your program or facility is invited to participate in the Interprofessional Viewing of the “To Err is Human” Documentary. Sessions are scheduled on the evenings of October 8th (in person) / October 22nd (remote). Multiple sessions are planned to accommodate all participants from all interested programs and facilities. In order to create interprofessional groups, we request that programs and facilities divide attendees across the two sessions, if possible. There will be a separate breakout session for practitioners.

Context – While there has been significant progress over the past decade in improving patient safety, medical errors continue to be prevalent in both acute care settings and ambulatory care settings resulting in deaths, injuries, and healthcare expenditures in the United States. Massachusetts is no different as the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety reported in 2019.

Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPCP) has been proven to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, and improve job satisfaction. IPCP involves teamwork. However in order to function as a team, members need to maintain a climate of mutual respect and shared values, understand the roles and responsibilities of the members, communicate effectively, and apply the principles of effective teamwork. This movie viewing and discussion are aimed at increasing your awareness of medical errors, considering solutions, and learning from, with, and about your current and future healthcare team members.

PV-IPEC IPE Health Fair at Baystate Place (Beacon Communities)

Date: TBD

PV IPEC hosts an interprofessional health fair at Baystate Place, a part of Beacon Communities. Nursing, speech language pathology, occupational therapy, dental assistant, nutrition, pharmacy, and other health science students will provide an array of services including: health education, assessments and evaluation. Special thanks to American International College, Elms College, Springfield Technical Community College, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Western New England University.

Contact Peta-Gaye Johnson pjohnson@masshirehcwb.com

Spring 2025

Interprofessional Patient Simulation Experience

Date: TBD

Interprofessional teams of students will review an ambulatory patient case collaboratively and strategize the roles for each profession. Students will interact remotely (similar to a telehealth encounter) with a standardized patient to gather information based on their professional roles. Students will then develop a team-based care plan and deliver to the patient and participate in a debrief discussion to review the advantages and challenges of team-based decision making in patient care.

*One faculty facilitator is needed per every 8 students attending

Aphasia Virtual IPE Program

Date: TBD

Interdisciplinary groups of students will engage in guided discussions, facilitated by SLP students. SLP students will have read Dr. Meyerson’s powerful book, Identity Theft, co-authored with her son, Danny Zuckerman, which addresses the understudied emotional and identity aspects of recovery and rebuilding a life post-stroke. Identity Theft centers on Meyerson’s experience, but also draws on her skills as a social scientist to incorporate stories from several dozen fellow survivors, family members, friends, colleagues, therapists, and doctors she has interviewed. Grounded in this diversity of experience and Dr. Meyerson’s expertise as an identity scholar, Identity Theft provides a window into recovery of extraordinary value to interdisciplinary professionals. The program will culminate with a presentation from Dr. Meyerson and her husband Steve Zuckerman. Want to know more? Read the Blog.

Participation by invite only.

PV-IPEC IPE Health Fair at Baystate Place (Beacon Communities)

Date: TBD

PV IPEC hosts an interprofessional health fair at Baystate Place, a part of Beacon Communities. Nursing, speech language pathology, occupational therapy, dental assistant, nutrition, pharmacy, and other health science students will provide an array of services including: health education, assessments and evaluation. Special thanks to American International College, Elms College, Springfield Technical Community College, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Western New England University.

Contact Peta-Gaye Johnson pjohnson@masshirehcwb.com

PV IPEC Interprofessional Poverty Simulation

Date: TBD

Could you survive a month in poverty?

The Poverty Simulation provides participants with the opportunity to assume the role of a low-income family member living on a limited budget. The experience is divided into four 15-minute sessions, each of which represents one week in which you must provide for your family and maintain your home. As one participant commented, “This poverty simulation dramatically demonstrates how much time and energy many families have to give just to survive from day to day. It quickly dispels the myth “that people would do fine if they would only go out and get a job!”

PV IPEC Spring Interprofessional Day

Date: TBD

The complexity of healthcare in the United States has increased the need for health professionals to work together and create new models of team-based care. In order to prepare health profession students for collaborative practice, accreditors of health professions academic programs are requiring the inclusion of interprofessional education. Students from medicine, physician assistant studies, nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, social work and others under the leadership of PV-IPEC work together in activities designed to target the IPEC Core Comps (Teamwork, Roles and Responsibilities, Values/Ethics, and Interprofessional Communication). Interprofessional education is defined as occurring when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.

Sign-up for:

Examples

MassHire Hampden County Workforce Board

1441 Main Street, First Floor
Springfield, MA 01103
413-233-9856

The MassHire Hampden County Workforce Board is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Program, auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities, Verizon Telephone Relay Service: TDD/TTY: 1-800-439-2370 Voice: 1-800-439-0183