Resource Center

Theory is essential to understand our interprofessional educational (IPE) practice. As a discipline, IPE has moved from being widely atheoretical to having a plethora of theories imported from the psychosocial disciplines that have utility to understand, articulate and improve IPE practice and evaluation. This paper proposes that when taking this deductive approach to theoretical development in IPE, a greater focus must now be placed on the rigorous testing of these theories within the IPE context.

In this Guide, we support the need for theory in the practice of interprofessional education and highlight a range of theories that can be applied to interprofessional education. We specifically discuss the application of theories that support the social dimensions of interprofessional learning and teaching, choosing by way of illustration the theory of social capital, adult learning theory and a sociological perspective of interprofessional education.

A peer-reviewed research paper comparing the properties of the IEPS and the RIPLS for measuring attitudes of three health professions (medicine, physicain assistant studies and pharmacy).

Enabling collaboration is presently a topic of great interest within the Canadian health system. Perhaps due to its inherent complexity, collaboration in not easily summarized in a single definition, nor has its efficacy been validated through empirical evidence. Until proven otherwise, an ongoing justification for improving collaboration in health systems remains that it intuitively makes sense.    

What does seem clear is that collaboration’s ultimate success or failure will be affected by a combination of interactional, organizational and systemic determinants that include: 

Interprofessional education (IPE) has been advocated in a number of policy documents for nearly 30 years as the main route to enhancing collaboration. Consequently, there has been a steady growth in IPE activity in this country and abroad. Despite this expansion, literature reveals that the planning and delivery of IPE remains a localized and rather haphazard affair with little understanding of the factors that influence its development or implementation.

The Institute of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education (IOM, 2013) report looks at examples of teamwork and collaboration in education and practice that use interprofessional education (IPE) to achieve better patient care; to obtain better health outcomes; and to increase the value of educational and health care systems relative to outcomes.

While research has indicated that professionals can work in an effective manner spread across the continuum of care, professional biases, boundary protectionism and little opportunity to develop interprofessional competence has made effective collaboration extremely difficult (e.g.

With the explosion of enthusiasm for interprofessional education as a means to increase collaborative practice and improve important healthcare outcomes, many institutions are devoting new resources to interprofessional educational programs. In order to reach the overarching goal of interprofessional education that improves the health of patients, longitudinal curricula should include sequenced educational experiences that build toward proficiency in practice (Josiah Macy Jr.

Despite its increasing popularity for the training of interprofessional teams, crew resource management (CRM) has a number of limitations, which are often overlooked. In this editorial, the authors discuss the evolution of CRM, explore the evidence linked to its use in promoting interprofessional teamwork and discuss many of its limitations.

In this editorial, the authors outline the need for using (grand, mid-range and micro) theories to enhance our understanding of interprofessional education, practice and care. The authors argue why we need to engage in theoretical development in the interprofessional field, and why theoretical development should not be seen as a luxury, or low priority, but a central feature of the work we do developing and studying interprofessional education, practice and care.