Establishing an Interprofessional Honor Society as an Extracurricular Health Professions Educational Bridge: A Formative Program Evaluation Case Study

Introduction: The increasing complexity of health care in the U.S. necessitates interprofessional approaches to problem solving and clinical decision making, including educating health professional students early in their training to embrace these approaches. One method to advance this goal is to build a culture of interprofessional collaboration in every academic health center. However, challenges such as the traditionally siloed modus operandi of different health professions have hindered this process. The literature suggests that this compartmentalized atmosphere is at least partly responsible for some of the misunderstandings among different types of health professionals. Methods: To bridge this relational gap among students, the author created a comprehensive interprofessional honor society by establishing a chapter of Alpha Epsilon Lambda, the National Honor Society of Graduate and Professional School Students, at 1 academic health center. This formative program evaluation case study traces the journey that made this achievement possible and lays out a model for other institutions to follow. Results: Necessary inputs include a stable source of program funding, recruitment of student leaders as founders, and commitment by the institution to host an interprofessional honor society, given the existing intraprofessional honor societies in the health sciences. Well-defined program processes or activities must also be identified and implemented, such as community service projects, annual induction ceremonies, and publication and dissemination of a student-led scholarly journal, for example. Finally, program outputs must be monitored and linked through a rigorously supported theory to the intended educational and healthcare outcomes. Conclusions: This study envisions the establishment of an interprofessional honor society as an extracurricular program, thereby raising awareness of this potentially useful strategy for promoting interprofessional collaboration among health professional students during their formative years.