Making Interprofessional Education Work: The Strategic Roles of the Academy

Abstract

Faculties (i.e., schools) of medicine along with their sister health discipline faculties can be important organizational vehicles to promote, cultivate, and direct interprofessional education (IPE). The authors present information they gathered in 2007 about five Canadian IPE programs to identify key factors facilitating transformational change within institutional settings toward successful IPE, including (1) how successful programs start, (2) the ways successful programs influence academia to bias toward change, and (3) the ways academia supports and perpetuates the success of programs. Initially, they examine evidence regarding key factors that facilitate IPE implementation, which include (1) common vision, values, and goal sharing, (2) opportunities for collaborative work in practice and learning, (3) professional development of faculty members, (4) individuals who are champions of IPE in practice and in organizational leadership, and (5) attention to sustainability. Subsequently, they review literature-based insights regarding barriers and challenges in IPE that must be addressed for success, including barriers and challenges (1) between professional practices, (2) between academia and the professions, and (3) between individuals and faculty members; they also discuss the social context of the participants and institutions. The authors conclude by recommending what is needed for institutions to entrench IPE into core education at three levels: micro (what individuals in the faculty can do); meso (what a faculty can promote); and macro (how academic institutions can exert its influence in the health education and practice system).

Defining a set of common interprofessional learning competencies for health profession students

“…Although conceptually straightforward, achieving this in practice within the core curriculum of individual health disciplines has been difficult (Ho et al 2008;McKimm et al 2010;Nisbet et al 2011;Olson & Bialocerkowski 2014). Frequently cited barriers to a more interdisciplinary and/or interprofessional approach to learning and teaching include the significant logistic task of timetabling activities across different discipline curricula, resource constraints, disciplinary differences in assessment and professional accreditation council expectations, student diversity, and more general resistance to change (Pecukonis et al 2008;Forte & Fowler 2009;Hoffman & Redman-Bentley 2012;Kezar & Elrod 2012).…”

Nursing Faculty's Needs of Knowledge, Beliefs, and Readiness to Implement Interprofessional Education in their Teaching: An Exploratory Study

“…Interprofessional teaching reinforces the relationships necessary for building faculty's confidence and supporting collaborative teaching (Sinfield, Donoghue, Horobin, & Anderson, 2012). Interprofessional teaching answers the need for diverse faculty members to learn together (D'Eon, 2005;Steinert, 2005), and the transfer of knowledge from academic to clinical settings (Ho et al, 2008;Simmons et al, 2011). Although positive learning outcomes among health sciences students abound, the implementation of IPE is not without raising some organizational and individual challenges.…”

“…IPE creates the need to develop an infrastructure to coordinate the schedules of a variety of students and teachers (Ho et al, 2008). There is a need to harmonize different curricula and timetables while creating an academic culture that values interprofessionality.…”

“…The lack of faculty members' knowledge and skills to design interprofessional courses and to teach collaboratively presents two major individual barriers to IPE implementation (Ho et al, 2008). Steinert (2005) underlined that a majority of faculty members have not been trained in an interprofessional environment and may lack the knowledge to apply the principles of IPE.…”

“…Demographic aging, health inequities, higher prevalence of non-communicable illnesses, and the rise of health care expenditures create the needs for interprofessional health education (Côté, Lauzon, & Kyd-Strickland, 2008;Ravet, 2012). Ho et al (2008) define IPE as "any form of health training that emphasizes the team learning of students from a variety of health professions" (p. 934). Despite inconclusive evidence linking IPE and its effectiveness regarding specific patient health outcomes (Reeves et al, 2013), IPE is increasingly seen as an effective way to prepare students for collaborative practice.…”