About the Alberta Interprofessional Conference

The Health Sciences Students' Association (HSSA), Alberta Chapter, is a student organization that promotes interprofessional teamwork and interaction between students in the various health disciplines at a school, provincial and national level. In 2005, the HSSA Alberta Chapter undertook the huge initiative of hosting the first provincial student interprofessional conference. The great success of this groundbreaking conference inspired HSSA to continue to make this an annual event for the benefit of health care students, their patients, their communities and the province at large. The November 2006 Conference demonstrated that the initial AIC was not only sustainable, but had the potential to grow considerably. Health care students are from schools such as the University of Lethbridge, Grant MacEwan College, NAIT, Mount Royal College, University of Calgary, Red Deer College, and University of Alberta.

The goals of this year’s Alberta Interprofessional Conference (AIC) are:

  • to provide information about the various ways in which health care professionals from different disciplines can work together as a team to provide the best possible patient care
  • to provide insight as to when health care professionals from different disciplines should work together as a team
  • to provide anecdotal evidence of the successes of interdisciplinary health care teams in terms of improved patient care and improved efficiency health care delivery
  • to obtain insight into the potential pitfalls of interdisciplinary health care team work
  • to demonstrate that interdisciplinary health care teams can provide superior health care to patients as opposed to independent provision of health care from several different health care professionals
  • to provide information about the opportunities available for students to get involved in interdisciplinary health care  
  • to provide opportunities for students to interact with other students in different health care disciplines
  • to provide opportunities for students to interact with health care professionals from various disciplines
  • to learn about emerging trends in health care such as patient demographics and the organization of health care delivery systems in the future
  • to promote the development and maintenance of interdisciplinary health care teams to improve the delivery of health care in the future
Updated August 27, 2009