UF College of Education partners with the College of Medicine to develop the Quality & Patient Safety initiative

In the era of merging technology with everyday life, UF colleges of medicine and education partnered to transform health care nationally with a new AI-enabled institute. 

In June, the College of Medicine announced its Quality & Patient Safety initiative (QPSi) that is backed by $10 million in state funding. The goal of the program is to improve quality, patient safety, health care efficiency and workforce development by harnessing UF’s computational strength in AI and resources like HiPerGator, one of the fastest supercomputers in American higher education. 

The College of Education has partnered with the College of Medicine to implement this initiative. The College of Education’s E-Learning, Technology and Communications (ETC) department will play a significant role in developing the program. It will focus on implementing the instructional design, videography and project management aspects of QPSi. 

ETC is familiar with creating powerful online educational tools using cutting-edge research and showcasing these technologies through effective storytelling methods. 

Leadership at ETC are excited to work with the CoM to showcase web-based targeted learning opportunities to improve quality and patient safety. 

The instructional design team assists with all aspects of course design, from mapping content to designing online components of the course. The team’s goal is to ensure QPSi learners have access to high-quality instruction that has the potential to improve health outcomes for patients. 

“I particularly enjoy being a part of the partnership between the colleges of education and medicine – I get the opportunity to connect the world-class pedagogical resources of the College of Education with the world-class faculty expertise at the College of Medicine,” said James Rigney, ETC instructional designer. 

Kayla Sharp, ETC assistant director of operations and project manager, has spent time fostering ongoing collaboration among the QPSI team, ETC team and subject matter experts responsible for the online courses.

“It has been exceptionally gratifying to collaborate with the College of Medicine on a project aimed at enhancing patient outcomes,” Sharp said. 

ETC has streamlined the work process by breaking down the course workload into manageable batches, typically consisting of four to six courses, she said. 

The ETC video team is integral to the project. It collaborates with the instructional design and graphic design teams to create engaging video that provides opportunities to clarify learning, which is essential for an audience that has so many demands in its field.

For example, this animation depicts the relationship between elements of a neural network involving nodes and the connection between nodes. The arrows demonstrate forward propagation and back propagation.

After filming, the final product is handed off to the instructional design team for course publication. 

François Modave, assistant dean of the QPSi initiative, said the partnership between the two colleges is a perfect match to build the initiative. 

“We have extensive expertise in AI for clinical care and the ETC team has the savoir-faire for how to effectively convey the content of our course using innovative learner-focused approaches,” Modave said. 

Modave looks forward to continuing the collaboration on a number of offered courses, potentially up to 50, over the next year for QPSi, he said.