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Abstract

There are diverse perceptions about the primary purpose of evaluation. In interprofessional education (IPE), there has been a perceived focus on evaluating against the outcome of improved collaborative practice and quality of care. This paper presents an exploration of the nature and purpose of evaluation methods commonly utilized in the IPE literature with its focus on outcomes-based evaluation and particularly the Kirkpatrick framework. It categorises recent evaluations of pre-qualification (pre-certification) IPE interventions.

Embedding interprofessional education (IPE) into academic programs presents structural, curricular and human factor challenges. Nurses and physicians comprise the dominant dyad in healthcare, and therefore nursing and medical faculty are key in guiding future IPE approaches. However, faculty experiences with IPE are rarely reported. This paper presents perceptions of medical and nursing faculty about key factors related to IPE for pre-licensure medical and nursing students.

Most health professionals in training, as well as those in practice, lack the knowledge and skills they need to play an effective role in systems improvement. Until very recently, these competencies were not included in formal (or informal) educational curricula. Interprofessional collaboration – another core competency needed for successful systems improvement – is also inadequately taught and learned. Achieving Competence Today (ACT) was designed as a new model for interprofessional education for quality, safety and health systems improvement.

BACKGROUND: Patient-focused care provided by an interprofessional team has long been presented as the preferred method of primary care delivery. Community pharmacists should and can provide leadership for many clinical and managerial activities within the primary care team.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the extent to which community pharmacists are prepared to be members of the health care team, and to assess their support for general expansion of clinical responsibilities.

High-fidelity simulation in health professional programs helps educators and students meet the challenges of increasingly complex clinical practice settings. Simulation has been used primarily to train nursing students either in interprofessional teams or within their respective nursing training levels. However, students' experiences of learning alongside others in different levels or years of the nursing program have not been explored.

OBJECTIVES: To report the extent to which the placement of paramedic practitioner students (PPSs) in accredited general practice (GP) training practices supported their development as autonomous, patient-centred practitioners and fostered interprofessional learning.

Effective communication and coordination are critical components for improving collaborative care delivery among different healthcare providers who work in mobile and time-pressured environments. Increasingly, healthcare providers are exploring alternative communication technologies to help bridge the temporal and spatial issues that are often inherent in the clinical communication conundrum.

The need to train health social workers to practice interprofessionally is an essential goal of social work education. Although most health social workers have exposure to multidisciplinary practice within their field work, few social work education programs incorporate interprofessional learning as an integrated component of both course work and field experiences (McPherson, Headrick, & Moss, 2001; Reeves, Lewin, Espin, & Zwaranstein, 2010; Weinstein, Whittington, & Leiba, 2003).

The need to train health professionals who can work across disciplines is essential for effective, competent, and culturally sensitive health care delivery. By its very nature, the provision of health service requires communication and coordination between practitioners. However, preparation for interdisciplinary practice within the health care setting is rare. The authors argue that the primary reason students are not trained across disciplines is related to the diverse cultural structures that guide and moderate health education environments.