Inaugural Director for New Office

TTUHSC El Paso Staff Member Promoted to Head of University’s New Office of Interprofessional Education

Institution addressing the critical need for team-based holistic patient health care

Alyssa Cervantes Benavides, Ph.D., M.P.A.

Alyssa Cervantes Benavides, Ph.D., M.P.A., has been promoted to the position of inaugural senior director of the new Office of Interprofessional Education within the Office of Academic Affairs at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso.

Dr. Benavides, who holds a doctoral degree in educational leadership policy from Texas Tech University, previously served as the associate managing director of TTUHSC El Paso’s Office of Clinical Informatics. At OCI she oversaw department administration and interdepartmental, interagency projects, including regulatory and commercial clinical quality programs, telemedicine projects, and population health technology projects.

“I’m enthusiastic about the opportunity to use my experience as a project manager and administrator gained here at TTUHSC El Paso over the past 10 years,” said Dr. Benavides. “I have the opportunity to use my knowledge of the value of interprofessional, team-based education and collaboration to promote quality patient-centered care.”

In her new role, Dr. Benavides will address a growing need to develop holistic patient health care by fostering collaboration between TTUHSC El Paso students across schools and disciplines. This practice is known as interprofessional education (IPE).

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), IPE is necessary due to an increasingly complex health care system to better serve patient populations and better manage limited financial resources. WHO recognizes that IPE benefits health care education when students of various professions “learn with, about, and from each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.” TTUHSC El Paso schools have already engaged in IPE activities in collaboration with other programs.

The new Office of Interprofessional Education (OIPE) seeks to provide a formal support infrastructure for IPE activities through an institution-wide initiative.

Universities have long been challenged to create IPE curricula that includes all cohorts. TTUHSC El Paso, however, has been addressing the issue since 2015. The Foster School of Medicine and Hunt School of Nursing partnered to establish working groups to explore ways to better integrate their respective curricula. This resulted in the writing of mission and goal statements that embraced IPE.

Students enrolling at TTUHSC El Paso soon discover they are part of a team of experts that spans all schools, not just their own. With IPE built into the curriculum, medical, nursing, research and dental students consult with each other to resolve challenges no single discipline can address on its own. This focus produces a new generation of exceptional health care providers, resulting in better health care for all.

The creation of the Office of Interprofessional Education was the logical next step in leveraging this vital health education need. Richard Brower, M.D., FAAN, vice president for academic affairs, noted that IPE will be a cornerstone of TTUHSC El Paso’s first Quality Enhancement Plan, which is required by the university’s accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Dr. Benavides added that without IPE, “we would be missing a valuable, timely opportunity to provide a centralized, concerted effort in IPE across TTUHSC El Paso schools. The OIPE office will additionally track, assess, and report students’ participation in IPE to provide insight on its critical, necessary impact to student learning, development and preparation.”

“Dr. Benavides’ new role is especially important to our continued growth and development as an academic health sciences center,” said Dr. Brower. “She was selected for this new role based on her demonstrated project management and leadership skills and expertise, as well as her commitment to TTUHSC El Paso’s value-based culture.”

For the past 20 years, Dr. Benavides has served in large-scale public organizations as a senior project manager, administrator and policy strategist throughout Texas. She joined TTUHSC El Paso 10 years ago. In addition to serving as the associate managing director for the Office of Clinical Informatics, she directed managed care contracting and payer relations in the Medical Practice Income Plan Department.

In addition to her Ph.D., Dr. Benavides holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Texas at El Paso.