摘要：The College of Public Health and Health Professions at the University of Florida is composed of five public health departments and four clinical health professions departments, and the college is one of six that make up the university’s Health Science Center. These organizational resources, along with the university’s explicit emphasis on collaboration across professions, colleges, institutes, and centers and the strong leadership and full support of deans and other academic leaders, provide a strong foundation for educational innovations. Three key areas in which the college has built upon these opportunities are interprofessional education, development of One Health instructional programs, and application of cutting-edge technology to students’ educational experiences. These innovations represent the types of creative approaches to preparing the 21st-century workforce that can be developed through collaboration among multiple disciplines in a major university. The University of Florida (UF) College of Public Health and Health Professions embraces a broad ecological approach to improving population health that complements treatment and rehabilitation with population-based surveillance, epidemiological research, and policies and programs aimed at primary prevention. This approach is consistent with recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, 1,2 which has emphasized the importance of collaboration among public health disciplines and other health professions to effectively address the complex determinants of contemporary health problems. Recently, integration of public health and clinical education has been further conceptualized and implemented through major changes in the education of health professionals worldwide. 3,4 The UF College of Public Health and Health Professions is in a unique position to respond to these calls and to contribute creatively to further educational developments because of its organizational components and clear priorities within the college and the larger Health Science Center. The college comprises five traditional public health departments (behavioral science and community health, biostatistics, environmental and global health, epidemiology, and health services research, management, and policy) as well as four other health professions departments (clinical and health psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech, language, and hearing sciences). The college has established policies and taken concrete steps to encourage collaboration among these disciplines in teaching, research, and service, such as establishing a faculty committee to promote collaboration, providing financial support for student–faculty demonstration projects that involve at least one public health department and one other health professions department, and offering a variety of opportunities for faculty and students across professions to meet and engage in discussions about collaborative ideas. In addition, the college is one of six that make up the UF Health Science Center. In 2010, the leadership of the Health Science Center, which includes the senior vice president for health affairs, college deans, and center and institute directors, developed a five-year strategic plan called “Forward Together.” The plan specifies a model of collaboration across colleges, centers, and institutes that requires working together to improve “individual and community health through discovery, clinical and translational science and technology, exceptional education, and patient-centered, innovative, high quality health care.” 5 To achieve these goals, it encourages active collaboration with our sister colleges of dentistry, nursing, medicine, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine in the Health Science Center, as well as agricultural and life sciences and interdisciplinary centers and institutes such as the Emerging Pathogens Institute, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the Institute on Aging, which are physically located in new facilities designed specifically for interdisciplinary work. Three key areas in which the college has built upon the opportunities presented by its focus on collaboration and the organizational leadership and resources to support it are interprofessional education, development of One Health instructional programs, and application of cutting-edge technology to students’ educational experiences.
