Evaluating a Center for Interprofessional Education via Social Network Analysis.

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Social Network Analysis
• Organizational Science

Background:

• Centers and institutes facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration but face challenges in impact evaluation.
• Traditional metrics may not fully capture the complex nature of interdisciplinary work.
• Interprofessional education (IPE) is a growing focus for centers globally.

Purpose of the Study:

• To apply social network analysis (SNA) techniques to evaluate the impact of an interprofessional education (IPE) center.
• To understand the evolution of faculty collaboration networks within an IPE center.
• To explore SNA as a supplementary evaluation tool for centers and institutes.

Main Methods:

• Constructed faculty collaboration networks from 2014-2017 for an IPE center at Virginia Commonwealth University.
• Utilized mathematical techniques to analyze network structure and changes over time.
• Examined network density, cluster formation, and key connector faculty.

Main Results:

• Faculty maintained consistent connection levels despite growth in programs and participants.
• New faculty clusters emerged, with specific faculty acting as crucial connectors.
• Confirmed the interprofessional nature of collaborations within the network.
• SNA provided evaluation data beyond traditional metrics like learner or faculty counts.

Conclusions:

• SNA offers valuable insights into the evolution and collaborative dynamics of IPE centers.
• This methodology can guide strategic decisions for centers aiming for interdisciplinary impact.
• Further development of benchmarks could enable comparative evaluation of centers using SNA.