An innovative initiative between MGH Institute of Health Professions and the Massachusetts General Hospital Stoeckle Center’s Crimson Care Collaborative continues to be recognized for its innovative approach to interprofessional education that pairs students from the MGH Institute, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Dental School, and other health professional schools to offer primary care to underserved communities. 

The MGH Institute has received the 2019 Public Health Excellence in Interprofessional Education Collaboration (IPEC) Award from the U.S Public Health Service and the Interprofessional Education Collaborative. The award is for the Boston graduate school's participation in the Crimson Care Collaborative, an academic-clinical partnership with Mass General's Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation. At several sites throughout Greater Boston, IHP nursing and physician assistant studies students work together with Harvard medical students and dental students, overseen by faculty clinicians from both schools, linking the allied health and medical worlds.

MGH Institute Associate Professor of Nursing Patricia Reidy, DNP, FNP-BC, RN, and Massachusetts General’s Marya J. Cohen, MD, MPH, are co-recipients of the award. They will be recognized at the IPEC meeting on June 13-14 at the Association of American Medical Colleges Learning Center in Washington, DC.

The IPEC Award acknowledges interprofessional education learning activities and experiences designed to enhance interprofessional team practice and improve healthcare delivery. Studies show dramatic improvement in patient outcomes occur when teams from advanced practice nursing, medicine, physician assistant, and dentistry care for patients together. 

“The MGH Institute’s profoundly positive and effective approach exemplifies how an innovative collaboration can scale up to promote community health,” notes Pamela M. Schweitzer, the chief pharmacy officer for the U.S. Public Health Service. “These programs have changed lives and these changes will lead to improved efficiency and quality of care, with long-range outcomes addressing the social determinants of health and advancing health equity.” 

The Crimson Care Collaborative was launched in 2009 with Harvard medical and dental students. MGH Institute nurse practitioner students joined the initiative in 2012 and physician assistant students were added in 2016.  

In 2017, the MGH Institute received a three-year, $1.399 million grant from the Advanced Nursing Education Workforce branch of the Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources, to enhance its participation with the Crimson Care Collaborative. The funding provides nurse training grants for selected nurse practitioner students committed to working in primary care in medically underserved communities upon graduation.