Development of Interprofessional Graduate Health Professions Education Programs: Findings From a Needs Assessment

Abstract

It is increasingly necessary to equip healthcare professionals to engage in collaboration via interprofessional education (IPE). This paper describes the findings of a mixed-methods pedagogical needs assessment in health professions education, in which IPE emerged as a key theme. Two new graduate programs aim to meet these needs.In 2010, the Lancet Commission proposed a number of health reforms in order to better face the challenges of 21st century healthcare. 1 Proposed reforms included the adoption of competencydriven approaches and transformative learning, the promotion of interprofessional education, the use of information technology for learning, development of academic leadership and development of a new set of competencies around social accountability and system transformation. A key challenge of such reforms is how to best equip health professions educators to enact new pedagogical challenges. [2][3][4][5][6][7]