Topics

• Interprofessional Education (IPE)
• Impact of Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (IPECP)
• Patient Advocacy
• References

NURS 410 - Health Care Delivery Systems & Informatics

Module 9: Interprofessional Collaboration and Patient Advocacy

Interprofessional Education (IPE)

The 2003 IOM report titled, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality, reflected discussions from an interprofessional summit held the prior year involving 150 participants across many health care professions. The resulting five core competencies that should be common in all health professions' education were imbedded in the following vision statement from the summit. All health professionals should be educated to deliver patient-centered care as members of an interprofessional team, emphasizing evidence-based practice, quality improvement approaches, and informatics. This report served as a major driver for health care professionals and educational organizations to move forward in meeting the needs of developing a competent workforce. But what is interprofessional education?

Interprofessional education is defined as the process when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” (World Health Organization, 2010, p. 10). Interprofessional education leads to collaborative practice in the work place. Evidence suggests that interprofessional teams achieve better outcomes and that team-based care should become the “normative clinical practice” (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011).

The Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice guidance document was developed with professionals representing nursing, pharmacy, dental, medicine, public health (Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). The report acknowledged that the vision of interprofessional collaborative practice, as a means toward safe, high quality, accessible, patient-centered care, is desired by all yet often not achieved. Why might this be the case?

Listen to, Interprofessional Education: What is it and Why do we do it, on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-83eDYlFP4 (9:07 minutes). Learn about the evolution of interprofessional education by listening to the experiences shared by the University of Arizona staff and faculty. What information is new to you? During your clinical experiences, what examples do you remember of interdisciplinary teams and collaboratively developed care in action? How did the team improve patient outcome or quality of care on the nursing unit?