“The ability to acquire new skills and knowledge that prepare for lifelong learning is itself a core competency that curricula must nurture…Early exposure to clinical practice or public health service promotes competence by teaching students how to integrate and apply knowledge in practice settings, learn from role models, and experience interdisciplinary and team approaches to the provision of health services.”

The World Health Report 2006 - Working together for health
Chapter 3, “Preparing the health workforce”
World Health Organization

The mismatch between the challenges of today’s health care delivery system and the manner in which health professionals are educated presents educators and administrators with challenges as well as opportunities. By 2030, more than 9 million Americans will be 85 years or older and have one or more chronic illnesses. Adequately caring for these complex patients will require a team of health care providers; consequently, it is vital that students in health professional fields learn how to be effective members of Interprofessional Health Care Teams (IHCT).

An IHCT is defined as “a distinguishable set of two or more people who interact interdependently and adaptively to achieve a specific shared and valued goal/mission/objective.” ¹²³ This definition can help us create new initiatives and models of interprofessional care teams that result in improved patient care and administrative efficiency. Interdependency affirms each health professional as a valued member of the team. Each individual brings to the team knowledge, skills and attitudes that directly and positively contribute to holistic patient care and improved outcomes.

Recognizing that health professional education needed substantial change, the Institute of Medicine committee report, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality, recommended that, “all health-care professionals should be educated to deliver patient-centered care as members of an interdisciplinary team, emphasizing evidence-based practice, QI approaches, and informatics.”⁴ “Schools for health professionals generally are not interdisciplinary [or interprofessional], but practice environments increasingly are…[this] poses a serious disconnect,” says Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N., committee co-chair and director of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. “Ideally, collaboration among clinicians in practice settings draws upon each profession’s strength and optimizes care for patients. We believe that the same can be true for health-professions education and that it’s… time to embrace a collaborative approach to reform.”

Ideally, an interprofessional team would include professionals and non-professionals from different health fields who work interdependently for a common mission, pooling their expertise to treat patients. Team members benefit from the different disciplines’ strengths to enhance solutions, creating a coordinated, collaborative effort to solve patient problems more effectively than what could be achieved by an individual.

Team development can increase the extent to which teams apply common tools, use common language and develop a shared perception of their work environment. Over time, teams begin applying shared knowledge and engage in a collaborative working relationship.v In a high-functioning IHCT, individuals are known first by their affiliation with the team, and second by their professional identity.⁶⁷⁸

One example of how interprofessional training and practice can occur has been demonstrated by The Rush Geriatric Interdisciplinary Team Training Project (1999). Through its work, eight principles of successful interprofessional teamwork have been articulated. They are:

1. Teams should have stated team goals.
2. Patients and families are at the center of team activities and are active members of the team.
3. Professional roles must be clearly defined and understood by team members.
4. All team members should contribute to team function through constructive individual behavior.
5. There must be effective team communication across all work groups.
6. The team must have tools and strategies for effective management of conflict.
7. The team should have explicit rules about participation and decision making.
8. Team members should be adaptable to the situation, sharing responsibilities and tasks.

These principles need to be incorporated into our educational environments at all levels so that novices learn these principles while their mentors model them.

The Healthy People Curriculum Task Force, through the Prevention Education Resource Center, intends to identify and make widely accessible teaching materials and innovative teaching methods that may be used to teach students in interprofessional groups.
“Interprofessional” is a choice on the Discipline Menu, so authors and users can post and browse specifically for these materials.

The PERC Discussion Forum is expected to encourage cross fertilization of ideas on teaching methods, approaches to integrating curriculum, and means for synthesizing curriculum. In addition, the Faculty Exchange will enable APTR to provide consultation to faculty and institutions that seek assistance in developing and/or implementing new curriculum and interprofessional training programs.

To search PERC for interprofessional teaching materials, click here.

To view links to resources outside of PERC on interprofessional education, click here.