UB MPH Students Awarded Interprofessional Collaboration Badges

Interprofessional collaborative practice digital badges.

Interprofessional collaborative practice digital badges are a part of the MPH curriculum

Published February 10, 2020

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The curriculum of University at Buffalo’s award-winning Interprofessional Education program (IPE) is made up of educational content and experiences that lead to students’ gaining a series of three interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) micro-credentials, also known as digital badges. The badges are proof that students have collaboration and communications skills vital to address tomorrow’s health care needs.

The School of Public Health and Health Professions’ Master of Public Health (MPH) program added the IPCP badges to its curriculum in 2019. This past semester, 12 MPH students earned the IPCP Foundations digital badge. Students can share this badge with employers as evidence that they have gained, through online learning activities and learning alongside students from other healthcare professions, about the importance of collaboration among provider teams to improve healthcare outcomes.

According to Assistant Dean Kim Krytus, director of the MPH program, “This badge provides graduates with a credential verifying they have mastered nationally recognized competencies from the Interprofessional Education Collaborative. They have skills that differentiate them from others in the health care field, keeping them at the leading edge of their profession.”

MPH students who earned the IPCP Foundations badge (and their program) are:

  • Emily Bertot (MPH-Epidemiology)
  • Ki Heun Chung (MPH-Biostatistics)
  • Steven Gabriel (MBA/MPH-Individualized)
  • Andrew Korman (MPH-Individualized)
  • Sarah Quinones (MPH-Environmental Health)
  • Brandon Reilly (DPT/MPH-Community Health and Health Behavior)
  • Halle Sauer (DPT/MPH-Community Health and Health Behavior)
  •  Emily Schweinfurth (MPH-Health Services Administration)

Four fall 2019 MPH graduates also earned the badge:

  • Emily Albers (MPH-Health Services Administration)
  • Melissa Hordes (MPH-Community Health and Health Behavior)
  • Ross Melnik (MBA/MPH-Health Services Administration)
  • Meet Prajapati (MPH-Health Services Administration)

Two other badges in the series are IPCP Communication and Teamwork, which MPH students can earn through engagement with community partners, and IPCP Healthcare Practice, which MPH students earn through their field training experience.

Badge completers communicate their interprofessional collaborative practice knowledge, skills and achievements gained in the MPH program by sharing the digital badge with employers and colleagues on social media accounts such as LinkedIn, or in resumes, ePortfolios or email signatures.