LINC Highlighted as National Model at IPEC Faculty Development Institute
Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration, or LINC, is the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) for 10-year re-affirmation of accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The QEP is built upon a competency framework developed by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), a national organization with 21 professional association members that collectively represents nearly all health professions colleges and schools throughout the United States.
IPEC hosts Faculty Development Institutes designed to help teams from around the country formulate and implement plans to advance IPE at their academic institutions. In 2018, a team from UT Health San Antonio led by Dr. Jacqueline Mok, Vice President for Academic, Faculty and Student Affairs, attended an IPEC Institute that shaped our QEP in substantive ways. Just four years later, on September 30, 2022, IPEC recognized LINC as a national model with an invited panel presentation— “The UT Health San Antonio IPE Journey: From Foundational Steps to Sustained Institutional Excellence”—at their Fall 2022 IPEC Faculty Development Institute in Washington, DC.
This panel, delivered as the closing presentation of the Institute, began with a description of the LINC operating and organizational models, noteworthy LINC programs and projects, and our impressive scholarly dissemination record by Dr. Joseph Zorek, LINC’s Director. Processes and procedures developed by the LINC Academic Affairs Council to operationalize the national guidance from the Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative, including specific examples from our Schools of Dentistry and Nursing delivered by Dr. Adriana Segura and Dr. Cynthia O’Neal, respectively, followed. Finally, Dr. Mok concluded the presentation by highlighting university-wide mechanisms to sustain institutional excellence.
This national recognition by IPEC builds upon momentum generated in July 2022 with the announcement that UT Health San Antonio, for our work through LINC, was honored as one of two recipients of the 2022 Award for Institutional Excellence and Innovation in Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Health Care from the Association of Schools Advancing Health Professions.