The four core competencies of Interprofessional Education (IPE) as defined by the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education are recognized as a gold standard for educational initiatives in health professions’ education. At West Virginia University, these competencies form the basis of our foundational “IPE 101” curriculum. For the past decade, our institution has worked to refine our foundational sessions to highlight one of the four core competencies of professional roles and responsibilities, value and ethics, teamwork, and communications. As each session is unique, there was not a standardized evaluation tool that would be applicable for each session. Therefore, students complete a retrospective pre/post survey that is specific to each session and measures the degree to which the core competency and related sub-competencies were addressed.

Session one, professional roles and responsibilities, uses a speed networking format to allow students to share information about their education and profession with one another. Session two, values and ethics, utilizes a choose-your-own adventure approach to guide students through the ethical decision-making process in a patient's case. The next session, session three, teamwork, uses an online platform to guide student teams through an interactive room of patient mistakes and safety hazards. The final session for the academic year, session four, communication, uses a role-playing format which challenges students to view a case using perspective roleplay techniques to focus on communication.

The post- session surveys include questions about how well each of the core competencies and sub-competencies were addressed, based on session objectives. The sub-competency questions are phrased in retrospective pre- and post- format. This provides important curricular feedback as well as student perception data and continues to build the case for IPE as part of the curriculum. This is also a springboard for simulation and clinical practice initiatives and demonstrates change over time.

This model, refined for nearly a decade, is transferable to other institutions, as session one is completed both in person and virtual, and the remaining three sessions are completed virtually.