A message from the National Center

Thank you to each of the many people who made Nexus Summit 2024 a success! Everyone who submitted an abstract, helped with peer review, hosted or facilitated conversations, presented their work, or engaged in dialogue…we are grateful to you! We know that many attendees found new insights, tools, or techniques to apply to their own interprofessional work, and we are grateful for the shared expertise and experience.

At the National Center, we are working with our Nexus Summit Advisory Committee, Nexus Distinguished Scholars, and Patient Responders to reflect on our own learning and from your feedback. We are just beginning this process, but want to share themes that are beginning to emerge which will inform our work Navigating Complexity to Achieve Outcomes in the coming year.

• Celebrate! We have come a long way as a discipline and as a community. We were deeply impressed with the work presented at this year’s Nexus Summit. Our community is finding new ways to deepen engagement with individuals and communities to inform their IPE work, and to engage with practice sites to strengthen our interprofessional clinical learning environments. Give yourselves a round of applause!
• Our People North Star –The need to develop meaningful, sustained relationships with the people and communities we seek to serve was a focus of our plenary speakers and many others, as well as the importance of working toward meaningful partnerships to co-create interprofessional practice and education that meets the needs of people served.
•  Understanding our Ecosystem – Our plenary speakers emphasized the importance of understanding our current state including methods and processes of continuous improvement toward sustainable changes that move us toward our aspirational goals for the future. This includes financial models that drive our academic and health institutions, structural racism that permeates our culture,  real lived experience of individuals, families, and communities served, and the need to continue development of systemic change that support the nexus of practice and education.
• Think Big, Start Small – The importance of ensuring IPE is locally relevant was an important theme throughout the Summit. Our patient plenary panel reminded us that we need to engage with local patients and community stakeholders to understand their real lived experience in our practice settings in order to effect systems change. Dr. Rachel Hardeman emphasized the need to engage with community to create new practice and education models that move us toward meaningful change that drives health equity. Drs. Linda McCauley and Bob Phillips pointed out that there is no “one size fits all” primary care practice. They underscored that initiatives must be tailored to the unique needs of our communities, while at the same time, the NexusIPE™ Learning Model provides an evidence-based and theoretical grounding that enables us to consider shared outcomes and impact in IPE.
• Structure, Strategy, and Tools Informed by Practical Wisdom – There has been incredible learning and growth over the last 20 years. New tools and strategies have been developed to support and advance IPE. These tools, along with practical wisdom gained through our interprofessional work in practice & education, can help us navigate the rapid changes we are experiencing as we work toward our goals for learners, providers, and for the health of people and populations we serve.

We will share more thoughts with you as we continue to review your feedback and debrief with our advisors. In the meantime, please visit the Daily Schedule to explore the archived recordings of plenaries,  seminars and lightning talks or MySummit Schedule to access sessions you curated for your own learning. The Interprofessional Learner and Professional poster PDFs and short videos are also available to registrants.

In Gratitude –
Christine Arenson
Director