Development of an interprofessional and interdisciplinary collaborative research practice for clinical faculty.

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Informatics
• Team Science

Background:

• Clinical faculty often lack formal training in team science and interprofessional research.
• Big data and informatics are increasingly crucial in modern healthcare research.
• Developing research skills in clinical faculty is essential for advancing scholarly activity and patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe an interprofessional collaborative research practice fellowship.
• To foster research skills among clinical faculty using big data and informatics.
• To evaluate the fellowship's impact on interprofessional research collaboration and clinical practice.

Main Methods:

• A year-long fellowship program focused on experiential learning.
• Inclusion of diverse clinical faculty with limited prior team science experience.
• Emphasis on big data analysis and the knowledge-information-data triangle in informatics.
• Provision of protected time and formal mentorship for fellows.

Main Results:

• Fellows developed interprofessional research practice and skills for team participation.
• The fellowship supported scholarly activity and research collaboration among clinical faculty.
• The program design proved viable for fostering interprofessional research capacity.

Conclusions:

• Interprofessional faculty research fellowships are effective for enhancing research skills.
• Experiential learning, mentorship, and protected time are key to success.
• This model can inform interprofessional clinical practice, improve patient care, and de-silo knowledge creation.