The Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, along with faculty, staff, and students from across the University of Michigan, participated in the virtual Nexus Summit 2026 on September 14-15 and 23-24, 2026.
The University of Michigan was well-represented at Nexus Summit 2026. Here is the lineup of the presentations:
Invited Sessions
Join us for an open forum dialogue where we hope to leverage the practical wisdom of our community to address an important opportunity and challenge - how we reframe the value proposition for interprofessional education, collaborative practice and health system-education partnerships.
We welcome all Nexus Summit attendees, and hope to bring together a variety of perspectives - patients, interprofessional leaders, educators, front line clinicians, administrators, students, and more. We need your voice in the conversation. Come with your curiosity and creativity. This is an opportunity for you to join the work at the ground level as we generate ideas and share perspectives that will shape a national initiative that the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education is leading.
Rajesh Mangrulkar, MD, FNAP — Meg Zomorodi, RN, PhD, ANEF, FAAN, FNAP
Seminars
This interactive skill-building seminar will engage participants in applying community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to design interprofessional, community health needs assessments (CHNA) that promote bidirectional learning, equitable partnerships, and advocacy-oriented action. The seminar will introduce an adaptable Community Health Action Model for Participatory Interprofessional Practice and Education (CHAMP-IPE) Protocol developed through an academic-community partnership and piloted with an interprofessional team of health science learners at a large midwestern university. Grounded in CBPR principles, the protocol emphasizes equitable collaboration, strengths orientation, co-learning, community capacity building, and translation of community priorities into action.
Amy Buckenmeyer, PhD, MPH, CPH, CPNP-PC, FNAP — Gretta Rempel Fisher, MPH — Chinwe Eze, PhD, MS, BSPharm
IPE as a Transformational Force - Changing Our Language to Make the “Business Case”
Interprofessional Practice and Education (IPE) face an existential crisis. Many IPE centers rely heavily on higher education investment and community grants, both deeply under threat. Meanwhile, the clinical learning environments where our students train remain largely untransformed, and the health and system outcomes IPE is positioned to improve continue to worsen. A major contributor to the crisis is a stakeholder and communication problem. Drawing on frameworks from Kotter, Mendelow, Moore, and Lee, we argue that IPE leaders have been making the wrong case to the wrong people. Healthcare system leaders — those who shape the clinical learning environment — are not moved by accreditation or pedagogical innovation. They require data and stories that speak directly to their concerns: retention, safety, quality, margin, and reputation. These are precisely the outcomes that transforming interprofessional teamwork can deliver. IPE is the solution they need — they just do not know it yet. This seminar introduces a framework for reorienting how we communicate IPE's value — identifying the stakeholders who control the levers of change, building the business case with data and cost implications that can better compel action, while crafting urgent, motivational narratives. The price of inaction is measured in preventable harm, workforce attrition, and the erosion of the IPE initiatives we have all built.
Rajesh Mangrulkar, MD, FNAP — Caitlin Hanna, BA — Mary Keehn, PT, DPT, MHPE — Zoey Kernodle, DrPH, MTS — John McGraw, MA — Sara McKinniss, MHI — Sara North, PT, DPT, PhD, M.Ed., FNAP — Andrea Pfeifle, EdD PT FNAP — Jennifer Timm, DNP, RN, PHN, FNAP — Alexa Valentino, PharmD, MBA, BCACP, FAPhA, FNAP — Meg Zomorodi, RN, PhD, ANEF, FAAN, FNAP
Lightning Talks
Developing sustainable leadership in interprofessional practice and education requires more than isolated training events; it requires intentional systems that cultivate engagement, mentorship, collaboration, and shared ownership across roles and settings. This Lightning Talk will present a strategic, multi-level model designed by the University of Michigan Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education to strengthen leadership capacity, build sustainable partnerships, and foster a culture of interprofessional learning and innovation across academic and clinical environments. The initiative is organized around three levels of engagement: “The Stadium” (awareness and entry), “The Bench” (active contributors), and “The Leaders” (capacity builders and stewards). Through these levels, faculty, staff, clinical preceptors, students, community partners, and patient advisors are intentionally supported in developing competencies, relationships, and leadership skills aligned with interprofessional education and collaborative practice goals.
Laura Smith, PT, DPT, PhD — Rajesh Mangrulkar, MD, FNAP — Vani Patterson, MPH, FNAP — John McGraw, MA — Olivia Anderson, PhD, MPH, RD, CLC — Amy Buckenmeyer, PhD, MPH, CPH, CPNP-PC, FNAP
This Lightning Talk will address the theme of Preparing Students for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice by presenting post-practice interprofessional debriefing as an educational strategy to maximize learning from students’ interprofessional experiences in every day practice environments. Learners will gain insight about 1) the feasibility and fruitfulness of gathering students from across campuses and health professions to debrief virtually about varying interprofessional interactions analyzed in their practice environments, 2) student- and faculty-perceived benefits and burdens of participating in interprofessional debriefing, and 3) potential best practices when conducting interprofessional debriefing in this context. Preliminary findings suggested overall positive experience from both students and faculty: expressed qualitatively and supported by ISVS scores trending positively. The interprofessional diversity of students and co-facilitators in the debriefing particularly added richness to debriefing.
Grace Kanzawa-Lee, PhD, BSN, RN — Jonathan Song, MSW — Ashley Thibodeau, DNP, CPNP-PC — Ethan Scott, MD — Jessica Baird, DNP. FNP-BC — Erin Khang, LMSW, FNAP — Rajesh Mangrulkar, MD, FNAP — Angela Smith, OTD, OTRL
Most interprofessional education programs assess student competencies through faculty observation tools or broad patient satisfaction surveys -- neither captures what patients actually observe from inside a student team encounter. This Lightning Talk describes the development, implementation, and initial results of a brief patient-partner survey designed to fill that gap in the Longitudinal Interprofessional Family-based Experience (LIFE) course at the University of Michigan's Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. LIFE is a longitudinal health professions education course in which student teams from multiple disciplines meet with volunteer patient advisors via Zoom over the course of a semester to learn about navigating health and health care. The patient-partner survey was developed iteratively with input from patient advisors, the Michigan Medicine Office of Patient Experience, and LIFE education leads. Items target 5 competency-linked domains aligned with the Interprofessional Education Collaborative framework: communication, teamwork, values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, and intercultural humility.
Julie Piazza, MS, CCLS — Erin Nicholas, BA — Sarah Hughes, MD — Olivia Anderson, PhD, MPH, RD, CLC — Laura Smith, PT, DPT, PhD — Hannah Edwards, MHM
People with disabilities, sensory loss, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and family caregivers possess essential expertise about navigating health care systems, communicating needs, challenging ableism, and receiving person-centered care. This Lightning Talk will describe a community-engaged educational model in which health professions students conduct semi-structured interviews with community participants who share lived experiences as patients, advocates, caregivers, and disability community members. The session will highlight how these interviews move beyond “patient stories” to position community participants as educator-advocates whose expertise strengthens learner preparation for inclusive, respectful, and accessible care.
Laura Smith, PT, DPT, PhD — Jeanne Andreoli, PhD — Jillian Woodworth, DrOT, OTRL, FNAP — Steven Erickson, PharmD
Professional Posters
Transitions of care are high-risk periods for adverse outcomes, especially for people experiencing homelessness due to unstable housing, limited care access, and fragmented support. Medical respite care provides a safe and stable environment to recover from post-hospitalization and connections to essential medical and social services. At one large midwestern university, there is a strong commitment to community health improvement and engagement of health professional students in community-based interprofessional practice and education. This setting provides an opportunity to work collaboratively with the medical respite care (health systems and clients) to assess health-related needs using the community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework in authentic learning environments.
Amy Buckenmeyer, PhD, MPH, CPH, CPNP-PC, FNAP — Gretta Rempel Fisher, MPH — Chinwe Eze, PhD, MS, BSPharm
Interprofessional education (IPE) provides structured learning opportunities for health professions students to engage across disciplines and develop interprofessional socialization. Competencies outlined by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the World Health Organization emphasize the importance of effective collaboration among healthcare professionals to optimize patient and family outcomes. This is especially important in pediatrics, where the patient's complex physiological, developmental, and social needs require coordinated teamwork and advocacy to optimize patient and family outcomes. Experiential clinical learning helps students understand team-based care and the roles of various disciplines. This study examined interprofessional socialization and perceived confidence among undergraduate nursing students following an experiential IPE activity in a pediatric clinical setting.
Jessica Baird, DNP. FNP-BC — Melissa Bathish, PhD, RN, CPNP-PC — Ashley Thibodeau, DNP, CPNP-PC
Many current health professions educators and clinicians completed their training before interprofessional education (IPE) became an accreditation expectation. As a result, familiarity with IPE competencies, collaborative practice principles, and shared language varies widely across academic and clinical settings. This inconsistency can limit the ability of educators and practice leaders to intentionally model, teach, and sustain effective interprofessional collaboration. Developing accessible professional development opportunities is essential to strengthen leadership capacity and create consistent foundations for IPE and practice across the professional lifespan. This project aimed to adapt an existing foundational Introduction to IPE module, originally designed for pre-licensure students, into a scalable professional development resource for educators and clinicians.
Laura Smith, PT, DPT, PhD — Hannah Edwards, MHM — Olivia Anderson, PhD, MPH, RD, CLC
Learner Posters
People experiencing homelessness represent one of the most medically complex and underserved populations in the United States. On a single night in January 2023, more than 653,000 individuals experienced homelessness nationally, yet standard discharge planning fails to account for the absence of safe recovery environments. Without transitional care options, patients face condition exacerbation, emergency department overutilization at rates 2.5 times higher than housed populations, and preventable readmissions. Medical Respite Programs fill this critical gap by providing post-acute care in a safe, supportive setting for individuals who no longer have inpatient needs but require additional recovery resources. This systematic review synthesizes evidence across six domains to inform interprofessional teams, health systems, and policymakers on best practices and advocacy for this population.
Madeline Carlin — Gretta Rempel Fisher, MPH — Austin Geer — Chinwe Eze, PhD, MS, BSPharm — Avery Steele — Bayan Zeqlam — Amy Buckenmeyer, PhD, MPH, CPH, CPNP-PC, FNAP