As part of an event that spanned northeastern and northcentral Pennsylvania and involved 756 students overall, the seventh annual Collaborative Care Summit convened at Pennsylvania College of Technology on Wednesday.Twenty-two facilitators from a variety of health professions, including physicians, led discussions in the Bush Campus Center among students from several colleges and universities who are pursuing studies in a wide range of health disciplines. Penn College was one of six summit locations.
The Collaborative Care Summit is arranged by the Northeastern/Central Pennsylvania Interprofessional Education Coalition – of which Sharon K. Waters, associate dean of health sciences, is a member and serves on the Leadership Team. Waters facilitated the Penn College event, which brought together 104 students from Penn College, Lock Haven University, Wilkes University, The Commonwealth Medical College and Marywood University. Dr. Janet Townsend, senior associate dean for regional campuses, community and educational affairs and regional associate dean, West Campus for The Commonwealth Medical College, co-presented the opening and closing with Waters.
The students participated in roundtable discussions of a medical case, learning from one another how each discipline contributes to a patient’s care.
“The goal of interprofessional learning is to prepare all health professions students for deliberatively working together, with the common goal of building a safer and better patient-centered and community health care system,” Waters explained. “It was extremely impressive to hear what the students contributed to the interprofessional team approach in representing their respective health care disciplines.”
Student participants across the various summit locations represented 19 professions, from exercise science to pharmacy to medicine to social work. Simultaneous events were held at Marywood University, The Commonwealth Medical College, The University of Scranton, Kings College and Misericordia University.