Feb. 9, 2015 |The UAMS Office of IPE announced a grant totaling $150,000 from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and its Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas. The grants will expand interprofessional education and collaborative practice for students at UAMS.

The grant to the UAMS Office of Interprofessional Education will fund development of a curriculum for interprofessional education, which occurs when students from two or more professions learn from, about and with one another to improve health outcomes. This fall the curriculum will become a graduation requirement for students in all UAMS colleges (Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and the Graduate School) that will better prepare graduates to deliver care as part of a collaborative health care team.

“The Blue & You Foundation is pleased to continue its support of programs at UAMS that will have a direct impact on making Arkansas communities healthier,” said Patrick O’Sullivan, executive director of the Blue & You Foundation.

Founded in 1948, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is the largest health insurer in Arkansas. Arkansas Blue Cross and its affiliates have more than 2,500 employees.

Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield established the Blue & You Foundation in 2001 as a charitable foundation to promote better health in Arkansas. The Blue & You Foundation awards grants annually to nonprofit or governmental organizations and programs that positively affect the health of Arkansans.