A comparison between urban academic health care center and rural community faculty members in approaches to IPE

The objective of this study is to compare attitudes and approaches to interprofessional education (IPE) between urban and rural faculty and includes description of barriers for teaching collaborative team-based care. A qualitative comparison of interview data comparing rural community based physician and pharmacy faculty members with their academic health center counterparts found a shared interest in IPE. The groups differed, however, in their methods of teaching IPE. Some of these differences appear to be driven by the differences in nature of the two types of practices. There is some evidence that lack of preparation for teaching IPE is greater among rural community than among academic health care center faculty members, suggesting an opportunity for focused faculty development efforts in this area. This is a compelling issue as health care education programs continually seek preceptors for clinical experiences that provide learners with exposure to interprofessional team-based practice in a variety of settings.