Resource Center

These guidelines call for new approaches in health professionals’ education. Approaches are needed that transform systems and encourage the move away from the traditional focus on tertiary care hospitals to initiatives that foster community engagement. The guidelines recommendations support and advocate for implementation considerations in efforts to involve communities and countries collectively for this transformational change in health professionals’ education.

Interprofessional education (IPE) is an important contributor to ensuring interprofessional collaboration and, ultimately, improving the quality of health care. However, there is a gap in available resources on critical success factors for implementing intentional interprofessional learning experiences. The Interprofessional Collaborative Organizational Map and Preparedness Assessment (IP-COMPASS) is a quality improvement framework that provides a structured process to help health care organizations become better prepared to offer IPE.

This paper proposes a new concept and a frame of reference that should permit the development of a better understanding of a phenomenon that is the development of a cohesive and integrated health care practice among professionals in response to clients' needs. The concept is named "interprofessionality" and aims to draw a clear distinction with another concept, that of interdisciplinarity. The utilization of the concept of interdisciplinarity, which originally concerns the development of integrated knowledge in response to fragmented disciplinary knowledge, has caused some confusion.

Interprofessional Care: A Blueprint for Action in Ontario identifies approaches that will help to integrate interprofessional care into existing systems, legislation and infrastructures. This Blueprint was developed following a year-long process of obtaining input from decision-makers and leaders in the health care and education sectors, as well as consumers. Achieving effective implementation of interprofessional care requires a comprehensive action plan that identifies the roles each partner or participant should undertake.

This guide is addressed to readers new to interprofessional education (IPE) who want to learn more as they prepare to become one of its tutors, practice teachers, facilitators, examiners, assessors, reviewers or researchers. It responds to questions that we are frequently asked by visitors to the UK embarking on their interprofessional journey, during the question time following our presentations in other countries and nearer home, by newcomers to CAIPE. It can be used by interested individuals working alone, but will have added value if used by a group working together to develop IPE.

This guide from the Center for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education:

This paper is a historical perspective on the development of interprofessional education (IPE) in health, social care and related fields in the United Kingdom between 1966 and 1997. It aims to provide a secure historical record, provide a foundation on which to review subsequent developments, and inform future policy, education and practice.

These case studies were commissioned in 2001 by the Department of Health with the understanding that their evaluated findings would be disseminated to ensure wider application. Three of the case studies concentrate on practice learning using different approaches, and the fourth on restructuring of all health and social care curricula to allow for integration. The juxtaposition of these different approaches enables comparisons between them.

The Learning and Teaching Support Network for Health Sciences and Practice commissioned this review from the UK Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) to help teachers engage effectively in interprofessional education. The paper reviews arguments for shared learning for health and social care professions in the Government workforce and training strategy – collaboration, substitution and accelerated career progression – noting concern expressed by universities and their teachers to clarify ends and means.

The turn of the Century was a watershed in the short history of interprofessional education (IPE) in the United Kingdom (UK) when the Labour government promoted “common learning” to be built in to the mainstream of pre-registration professional education for all the health and social care professions to help implement its modernisation strategy (Secretary of State for Health, 2000; Department of Health, 2004).