The status of interprofessional education in Canada
This article describes the history and development of interprofessional education (IPE) in Canada from its conceptual beginnings in the 1960s to today. The status of IPE in Canada is viewed in relation to the broader international movements for IPE and collaborative healthcare. The current goals and principles of the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative are reviewed, and the future of IPE is considered in light of these goals.
World Health Organization Announcement
The urgency for action to enhance human resources for health internationally was recently highlighted by the World Health Report 2006: Working Together for Health which revealed an estimated worldwide shortage of almost 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses and support workers. The 59th World Health Assembly recognized this crisis and adopted a resolution in 2006 calling for a rapid scaling-up of health workforce production through various strategies including the use of "innovative approaches to teaching in industrialized and developing countries."
Introducing InterEd
Ideas for an international association had been debated between interprofessional exponents on both sides of the Atlantic ever since the 1997 All Together Better Health conference. Those ideas became tangible when John Gilbert and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia volunteered to take the lead encouraged by influential supporters worldwide.
CLER Pathways to Excellence
As a component of its next accreditation system, the ACGME has established the CLER program to assess the graduate medical education (GME) learning environment of each sponsoring institution and its participating sites. CLER emphasizes the responsibility of the sponsoring institution for the quality and safety of the environment for learning and patient care, a key dimension of the 2011 ACGME Common Program Requirements.
Putting the Spotlight on the Quality Improvement Practicum
Wait times are frustrating — for busy patients and busy clinicians.
At The Dimock Center in Boston, at least once every week, lack of a prior authorization meant that providers had to deny a patient a Suboxone prescription. Sometimes this happened as many as five times in a week. And every time, it meant a now unhappy patient waited for as many as four hours at the clinic. Staff members at Dimock, meanwhile, were overwhelmed and frustrated with the process.
