Interprofessional care and education at the Pitt Vaccination and Health Connection Hub: A description of collaboration in a community pharmacy across six health science schools

Abstract This report describes a novel model of interprofessional education (IPE) integrated with community pharmacy patient care involving six health sciences schools within one university. The University of Pittsburgh's (Pitt) six health sciences schools (Dental Medicine, Nursing, Medicine, Pharmacy, Public Health, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences) collaborated heavily during the initial COVID‐19 vaccination effort. These efforts led to the establishment of the pharmacist‐led Pitt Vaccination and Health Connection Hub (Hub) with University Pharmacy, the independent pharmacy on Pitt's main campus. The Hub's priority is to instill the value of interprofessional patient care in learners through collaboration across the health sciences while providing high‐quality preventive care. Between August 2022 and December 2024, approximately 2200 learners participated in educational experiences while the team administered more than 29 000 vaccines amongst other preventive health services. Through this collaboration, 10 key lessons emerged around the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competency domains. A foundation of shared learning objectives and patient care facilitated engaging diverse levels and categories of learners while balancing varying student goals and expectations. Effective team communication and leadership support were critical, particularly given the complexity of operating a dual‐function model of patient care and education. The Hub found success by creating a welcoming environment that embraces diversity and inclusion, which enhanced the experience for both students and patients. The Hub's focus on preventive, low‐acuity care and its community pharmacy setting allowed for meaningful interprofessional interactions between health professional students. The Hub's model is an example of the potential of IPE in the community pharmacy setting to prepare health science students for collaborative practice. Future research should be conducted to evaluate outcomes of this model for participating learners and patients. Pharmacists and collaborators should consider how elements of the Hub's model and its lessons learned could be applied to develop and scale impactful pharmacist‐led IPE efforts nationwide.