The delivery of effective, high-quality patient care is a highly complex activity, demanding health and social care professionals to collaborate in an effective manner. Interprofessional learning (IPL) is professionally relevant, intellectually stimulating and evidence based. New learning paradigms for healthcare professionals explore new ways to combine expertise, delivering IPL programmes where patient safety and quality of care can be improved (WHO 2010). Intervening early in the health professional's career with collaborative activities with IPL is now considered important in healthcare training. Development of multidisciplinary student centred ideas hopefully results in the enhancement of patient-centred care. Conscious competence in understanding the benefits of IPL is needed to recognise those that are naïve to IPL and competent professionals who are able to design new curricular and deliver training to address unconscious incompetence to IPL. There are many diverse theories applied to IPL where theory is observation of practice, confirmed by practice. Much development and consolidation of IPL theory is needed.No one healthcare profession can give complete healthcare single-handed.
Keywords:Interprofessional learning, collaboration, healthcare professionals, human factors, healthcare cultural barriers
Defining interprofessional learning, collaboration and practiceWorking with other disciplines clearly instils a mutual respect of other professionals with shared values, who perform effectively in different team roles and provide patient-centred care that is safe, timely, efficient, effective and equitable. (Barr H, Low H, 2012) Firstly, to establish a definition of Interprofessional Iearning (IPL), which is when individuals improve knowledge and competence during interprofessional education. Interprofessional education (IPE) occurs when two or more professions learn, with or about each other, aiming to improve interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and the quality Houldsworth A MedEdPublish https://doi.org/10. 15694/mep.2018.0000039.1 Page | 2 of care (CAIPE, 2008). IPE in health professions pursues the goal of enabling IPC (CAIPE, 2011). Some core competencies have been identified for interprofessional practice.Intervening early in healthcare training is considered important in healthcare education within the health professionals' career pathway, using collaborative activities and IPL. Experienced professionals who engage in advanced professional practice by continued professional development (CPD) are considered to be advanced practitioners.Effective teaching is an essential requirement for effective IT. When addressing an interprofessional curriculum to deal with differences as well as the interprofessional commonalities, common broad headings and knowledge bases need to be identified. The different cognitive maps of the different disciplines need to be understood in order to differentiate the teaching for each of the professional groups, which may have alternative starting points and abilitie...