The LEAP Champion program: leveraging clinical champions to embed sustainable interprofessional education in the clinical learning environment.

PROBLEM: While interprofessional education (IPE) is widely recognized as a valuable and necessary component of collaborative practice training, significant gaps exist in identifying site-specific opportunities in implementing IPE in the clinical learning environment. This report presents an innovative academic-clinical partnership model rooted in the evidence base, designed to address gaps and challenges in advancing IPE in the practice setting. APPROACH: The Center for Interprofessional Health (CIH) at the University of Minnesota partnered with select local healthcare organizations to launch an innovative academic-clinical partnership model in 2024-25 and 2025-26, designed to leverage and support IPE champions employed within health systems. The cohort-based LEAP (Learning through Engaging Actively in Practice) Champion program provides a model for clinicians to advance the implementation of explicit, sustainable, coordinated integration of learners from a variety of health professions into on-site, authentic IPE experiences, with guidance and resources, both internal and from CIH. Program interactions, materials, and assessments/ deliverables are outlined. OUTCOMES: LEAP Champion outcomes include impacts on the organizations, learners, and individual champions. Outcomes demonstrated early advances in pilot site IPE infrastructure, IPE engagement of 170 learners from 9 professions, and high satisfaction of champions with the cohort-based mentorship and resources. Findings support the model's feasibility as a professional development experience alongside clinical roles. Key overall lessons learned are shared to guide future research. NEXT STEPS: By leveraging academic-clinical partnerships to drive system-level progress, the LEAP Champion model provides a robust foundational framework for continued study of strategies advancing IPE within the practice setting. Based on key lessons learned during the first two years of the LEAP Champion program, next steps are proposed to move toward broader system-level impact and replication, including developing a robust infrastructure for sustainability, expanding training and modalities, and enhancing a multi-source evaluation model.