Lipscomb leads in building Tennessee’s effective healthcare teams of the future

Lipscomb leads in building Tennessee's effective healthcare teams of the future

Federal grants, university partnerships and program consolidation with social work and behavioral health have shaped Lipscomb's interprofessional education in 2026.

By Janel Shoun-Smith | 615-966-7078 | 06/15/2026

"Teamwork" has become a watchword in today's healthcare industry.

National and international associations are calling for integrated healthcare teams to treat patients. Accreditation associations require enhanced interprofessional education (IPE) in colleges. Research studies have shown improved patient outcomes and patient satisfaction when they are treated by a collaborative health care team.

Employers note that their new employees who have experienced IPE in college arrive at their jobs with enhanced confidence, improved conflict management skills and greater readiness for collaborative practice-attributes increasingly demanded by healthcare.

For Lipscomb, this is not a new concept. Since 2009, Lipscomb's health science faculty have been proactive in taking advantage of and developing interprofessional education opportunities for Lipscomb students.

Early versions included enrolling select pharmacy students in an interprofessional program operated by Vanderbilt University, bringing hundreds of students together for a quarterly Grand Rounds exercise and teaming student nurses with students from other disciplines to work in local community agencies.

Lipscomb's IPE tradition has continued through the years until now, in 2026, Lipscomb's College of Pharmacy faculty is designing federally funded IPE experiences for students across the state as well as Lipscomb students, and the newly named College of Health & Human Sciences is continuing to increase its IPE by incorporating three new types of students: social work, counseling, and marriage and family therapy (MFT) students.

Vanderbilt taps Lipscomb associate professor to develop IPE programs

Dr. Abbie Burka, associate professor and director of interprofessional education (IPE) at the Lipscomb College of Pharmacy, has been coordinating interprofessional education for pharmacy students for eight years, often teaming them with Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University students.

In 2024, Burka was tapped to carry out IPE for Tennessee students through a federal grant to help integrate geriatric care into primary care delivery.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awarded a federal grant to the Middle Tennessee Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP), run by the Vanderbilt School of Nursing.

GWEP coordinators awarded the subgrant to Burka to develop and promote IPE events to train health science students to care for older adults.

In 2025-26, Burka began coordinating three virtual and in-person workshops per year for 234 Meharry medical students, Lipscomb pharmacy students and social work and pharmacy students from Union University.

These first-year students learn about the Patient-Centered Medical Home model of care, Medicare wellness visits and telehealth while studying patient case studies of older adults with complex care needs, said Burka. The events include two encounters with actors portraying patients.

Following the IPE events, 98% of students surveyed agreed that "I am better able to collaborate with other healthcare providers, patients, family and/or caregivers to provide patient-centered care," reported Burka.

"IPE really builds appreciation of the roles of other professionals as well as communication skills," said Burka. "I think a lot of programs do a very good job of teaching patient communication, but they don't directly teach how to communicate with other professionals.

"Modern healthcare is team-based, and our students have to be ready to be practicing members of a healthcare team," she said. "IPE provides a foundation for our students to be team-ready to enter a collaborative practice."

In addition to GWEP, Burka also works with the Vanderbilt Interprofessional Health Education Collaborative (VIPHEC) to develop IPE programs for 207 Vanderbilt nurse practitioner and medical students, Lipscomb's pharmacy, counseling, and MFT students, and University of Tennessee-Knoxville social work students. In the coming school year, Lipscomb dietetic interns will also participate.

The VIPHEC program mirrors many of the same goals as Lipscomb's Initiative for Behavioral Health Integration in the Department of Psychology, Counseling and Family Science, which has been training counseling and therapy students through a multi-million dollar federal grant to work in and advocate for integrated health care since 2017, said Melanie Morris, professor and clinical director of the clinical mental health counseling program (CMHC) and course director and faculty facilitator for VIPHEC.

VIPHEC, a 10-month program with monthly three-hour education sessions, focuses on how patient-centered approaches can improve health outcomes. "It shows that these patient outcomes start with respectful, collaborative, interprofessional teams," Morris said.

Students learn about the various disciplines represented and how to apply their respective discipline knowledge to mock patient cases and team projects, she said. Students also take a self assessment focused on their natural giftedness while working in the context of a team and discuss how their teams can work effectively together.

"Hearing about everyone's education and professional path helped me see how our roles complement one another," said one CMHC about the program, "and it made our collaboration feel more grounded, respectful and aligned. That clarity ultimately strengthened our ability to work as a cohesive team."

Currently, Burka is a co-principal investigator with Vanderbilt VIPHEC co-director Charlotte Brown of a study on the effect of home visits conducted by interprofessional student teams on both the students and patient volunteers.

Health science college brings more teamwork opportunities to behavioral science students

In fall 2024, the then-College of Health Sciences established a new Interprofessional Education Committee to advance collaborative health care education across its disciplines by creating shared learning opportunities for students and faculty from kinesiology, nursing, nutrition and the PA programs.

Led by Committee Chair Abbey Wu, assistant professor in physician assistant (PA) studies, the committee works to create guidelines and an annual slate of IPE experiences while also exploring new initiatives and resources to prepare students for the complex, team-based nature of modern health care delivery.

Committee members are Amy Draper of dietetics; Libby McCurley of kinesiology; Beth Twomey and Daelyn Wright of nursing; Autumn Maxwell and Erica Vasquez of social work; Meagan Spencer of communication science and disorders; Jeff Adams of the Health Sciences Simulation Center; and Meghan Lacks of MFT. In the past two years, the health science committee has coordinated several opportunities for health science students to embrace collaboration and to learn from each other:

• Nursing and dietetics students have come together for specialized training on swallowing disorders and the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative;
• PA and kinesiology students have collaboratively explored stress testing and prescriptive exercise for cardiovascular disease;
• PA students worked with pharmacy students to discuss educational curriculum, licensing requirements and scopes of practice for PAs and pharmacists in Tennessee;
• In spring 2025, 100 health sciences and social work students and faculty participated in a hands-on interdisciplinary education fair with stations discussing the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in clinical decision-making, a dementia and aging simulation and a roundtable discussion to develop discharge plans for patients.
• In spring 2026, health science, social work and MFT students learned from a unique experience, designed by the Nashville Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, to help them identify and aid victims of human trafficking in the emergency room or urgent care setting. The session was designed to sharpen diagnostic intuition and highlight the power of interprofessional vigilance. After the simulation, students engaged in a faculty-led debrief session along with guests from the coalition, who shared best practices to recognize and advocate for victims.

Including social work and MFT students in these IPE sessions, proved to be a harbinger of the future, as the Department of Social Work & Sociology and the Department of Psychology, Counseling and Family Science joined the health science college in summer 2026 to create the College of Health & Human Sciences, further cementing the teamwork attitude needed for practice in today's healthcare industry.

"For our program accrediting body, IPE advancement is an important initiative because it improves health outcomes for all communities," said Maxwell, assistant professor and coordinator of field education in social work. "Once you know what each person brings to the table, you are able to work as a team more effectively."

That's crucial for social workers today as they work in so many settings, from the education to the criminal justice systems, as well as many healthcare environments, she said.

In addition to working with Lipscomb's health science students in internal IPE programs, social work's participation in Burka's GWEP-coordinated training workshops allows their students to work with students from other universities, Meharry and Union University, as well, said Maxwell.

"I view IPE as an essential foundation for patient-centered care because it encourages future healthcare professionals to understand and respect the expertise of their colleagues," said Vasquez, assistant professor of social work, who is also a committee member for the Education Working Group for the Tennessee Interprofessional Practice and Education Consortium. "By fostering effective communication and teamwork across disciplines, IPE helps create a more coordinated approach to care and better supports the needs of patients and their families."