Kimberly Adams Tufts Named New College of Health Sciences Assistant Dean for Inter-professional Education

July 18, 2014

Kimberly Adams Tufts

Kimberly Adams Tufts, associate professor of nursing, has been appointed assistant dean for Interprofessional Education (IPE) in Old Dominion University's College of Health Sciences (COHS).

The dean of the COHS, Shelley Mishoe, made the announcement this week and noted that the appointment was in response to faculty recommendations from the Task Force for Interprofessional Education, which issued its final report last December and recommended a leadership position to grow, implement and sustain interprofessional initiatives.

"We look forward to her leadership on this strategic initiative for the college to fully embrace this movement to transform health sciences education, community engagement and input from stakeholders," Mishoe said of Tufts' appointment.

Mishoe said Tufts will appoint an IPE Advisory Committee that will work with her, the chairs council and faculty to facilitate the IPE initiative. Tufts will lead the implementation of the IPE Task Force's recommendations and goals to further incorporate interprofessional education in COHS curricula to achieve the core competencies of communication, teamwork, ethics and understanding of roles and responsibilities in the health professions.

Tufts will continue to teach courses in the School of Nursing and work with the Center for Global Health, in addition to her new role as the assistant dean for IPE. She and the director of the Center for Global Health, along with faculty in the center and schools, will develop interprofessional global health experiences as one of many strategies to advance interprofessional education and practice.

Tufts has significant experience in IPE and practice that will support not only the curricula development, but also the scholarship of curriculum development.

Examples of her past experience include:

• During the early 1990's, she led the development of the Buckeye Health Center, assuming the role of founding executive director of this community-based health care center. Center services included: an onsite birthing center, child development programming, community capacity building and primary health care across the lifespan. All services were grounded in principles of interprofessional teamwork. She led a team of community health workers, community development specialists, nurses and physicians who worked together to improve community health indices such as the local infant mortality rate, vaccine uptake, healthy housing and school readiness.
• While at Case Western Reserve University, Tufts was a faculty associate in several interprofessional centers, including the Center for Health Promotion, Center for Adolescent Health, and Center for AIDS Research. While at the Center for Adolescent Health, Tufts worked with social work colleagues to develop the Adolescent Health Specialty track for the MPH program, She also developed several interprofessional courses including Adolescent Health Care Policy: Legal and Ethical Issues, which included biostatistics, law, nursing, medicine and social work students. She learned many of the interprofessional teaching strategies employed in that course during a one-year fellowship in the Center for Professional Ethics. During this fellowship experience, Tufts learned with and from fellows from bioethics, geography, history, nursing, physics and theatre.

Tufts also has substantial interprofessional experience in the global health arena. She spearheaded a team comprised of nursing and medical professionals that developed and implemented a master's of a University of Zimbabwe nursing program, which was supported by the Kellogg Foundation. From 2001-2004, she was the nursing team member as part of an American International Health Alliance (AHIA-USAID) that funded interprofessional teams of counselors, IT specialists, nurses, physicians and social workers that worked in Ukraine to improve access to mental health care services.

For more information about Tufts, see here bio page on the ODU website.