Development and implementation of a COVID-19 Vaccine and Pandemic Planning course: An interprofessional education approach

We developed an online interprofessional COVID-19 Vaccine and Pandemic Planning course at the height of the pandemic to prepare health science students for future vaccine delivery. Faculty from nursing, pharmacy, medical, and dentistry developed a six-week online co-curricular interprofessional education activity open to all health science students across seven schools on three campuses within the same University system. Total enrollment included 303, with 228 completing the course from 16 programs. The majority of students were from the Doctorate in Dental Surgery (DDS) program (26.2%) and the Midwestern urban campus (90.3%). Successful rapid course development and implementation was attributed to several factors. The broad range of students across health science programs and differing years in respective programs provides insight to plan future co-curricular activities. The rapid development of a system-wide health science IPE course has implications for continuously changing professional health education needs.