Back to Back: Having interprofessional education during the undergraduate years is essential for building teamwork skills in general practice: Yes

Abstract

Having interprofessional education during the undergraduate years is essential for building teamwork skills in general practice-the 'yes' case.

Long‐term effect of a short interprofessional education interaction between medical and physical therapy students

“…Along with mastering specific discipline‐based requirements, providers from various fields must understand each other's professional roles and communicate effectively within the healthcare team. Interprofessional teamwork in healthcare has been said to foster better utilization of human resources, enhance workflow, promote economic sustainability and increase patient satisfaction (Frenk et al, ; McKinlay and Pullon, ). While it has also been underscored that working in teams is neither easy nor intuitive, studies have demonstrated that team skills can be learned in order to improve interactions between individual members of the team (Lerner et al, ; McKinlay and Pullon, ).…”

“…Interprofessional teamwork in healthcare has been said to foster better utilization of human resources, enhance workflow, promote economic sustainability and increase patient satisfaction (Frenk et al, ; McKinlay and Pullon, ). While it has also been underscored that working in teams is neither easy nor intuitive, studies have demonstrated that team skills can be learned in order to improve interactions between individual members of the team (Lerner et al, ; McKinlay and Pullon, ). By definition, interprofessional education (IPE) is said to occur “ when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care” (CAIPE, ).…”

“…Such programs have been shown to improve collaborative team behavior such as increased operating room efficiency (Bender et al, ). Patient satisfaction and reduced clinical errors have also been reported, but greater understanding is needed regarding which components of IPE programs are responsible for such success (Reeves et al, ; McKinlay and Pullon, ). Barriers to instituting IPE in undergraduate training include difficulty in coordinating coursework, lack of an established framework and resistance to IPE by students and/or faculty (Gilbert, ; Hammick et al, ; IPEC Expert Panel, ).…”

“…However, exposure to IPE early in training enables students to become familiar with and comfortable working within an interprofessional environment, better preparing them for future collaborations (Gilbert, ). McKinlay and Pullon () argue that learning interprofessional teamwork skills in the workplace when clinical responsibility and patient care stakes are high is far from ideal. Learning of these skills is therefore better served within the medical school and allied health curricula as they provide a favorable platform for the initiation of interprofessional learning within the framework of basic science courses (Kirch and Ast, ).…”

Multi-Organizational Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration Systems: An Exploratory Research Study of Design Concerns in Healthcare

“…to coordinate collaborators' cooperative activities [6], to exchange structured data [7], and to support collaborators' communication for joint reasoning [8]. Health information systems that afford those capabilities are associated with, for instance, reduced preventable adverse drug reactions [9], decreased duplication of effort [10], and reduced waste of healthcare resources [11].…”