This document provides an overview of interprofessional education and collaborative practice. It defines key terms like interprofessional education, collaborative practice, and interprofessionality. It discusses guiding principles for interprofessional education put forth by organizations like the World Health Organization and Institute of Medicine. These principles include roles/responsibilities, values/ethics, communication, teamwork, leadership, and patient-centeredness. The document also addresses functions, settings, definitions, and barriers to interprofessional collaboration, as well as strategies to facilitate culture change in educational and practice settings.

1. Interprofessional
Learning
Meeting at the
Crossroads of Care

2. Small Group Activity 1
How do you define
teamwork?
1. Where did you learn
about how to be a
team member?
2. What skills are
needed to build
collaborative teambased practice?
3. What are the barriers
to working as a team?

3. What does collaborative learning & practice
look like in your institution?
Interprofessional collaboration promotes the
achievement of goals that cannot be reached when
individual professions learn or act on their own

4. Definitions
Interprofessional Education occurs when two
or more professions learn about, from and
with each other to improve collaboration and
the quality of care.
Collaborative Practice promotes the active
participation of relevant cross-disciplinary
professions in patient-centered care.

5. Interprofessionality is not
•
•
•
•
•
•
Simply sharing electronic health records
Sole profession teams (neurologist, pulmonologist, radiologist)
Learners hearing a talk about another profession
Reporting out at interdisciplinary team meetings
Co-location without intentional collaboration
Decision-making without client/patient input

6. WHAT STUDENTS TELL US

7. Function
Interprofessional knowledge and skills promote capacities to
understand the roles of other health providers and implement
the workings of teams - regardless of team make-up - with the
person’s best interests at the center of care.
Mental Health Settings
Emergency Care
Community Health
Environments
Operating Theater

8. Institute of Medicine
http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/education/cur
riculumtools/teamstepps/instructor/videos/ts_Sue_Sheri
dan/Sue_Sheridan-400-300.html
The Institute of Medicine’s
(IOM) seminal study of
preventable medical errors
estimated as many as
98,000 people die every
year at a cost of $29 billion.
If the Centers for Disease
Control were to include
preventable medical errors
as a category, these
conclusions would make it
the sixth leading cause of
death in America.
Deaths/Mortality, 2005, National Center for Health Care
Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control, viewed
at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm.

9. BIG Picture

10. IPE – Guiding Principles
http://www.aacn.nche.edu/education-resources/IPECReport.pdf
World Health
Organization
Canadian
Interprofessional
Health Collaborative
Institute of
Medicine
U. S.
Interprofessional
Expert Panel

11. IOM 6 Aims for Improving Health Care
• Safety: avoid injuries to patients from the care that is
intended to help them
• Effective use of scientific evidence to serve all patients
• Patient-centered care that is respectful of and
responsive to patient preferences, needs and values,
and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical
decisions
• Timeliness and reduction of potentially harmful delays
• Efficiency and avoidance of waste of equipment,
supplies, and human resources
• Equitable care that does not vary in quality because of
person characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity,
geographic location and socioeconomic status

12. IPE – Guiding Principles
 Values/Ethics for Interprofessional
Practice
 Roles/Responsibilities for
Collaborative Practice
 Interprofessional Communication
 Interprofessional Teamwork and
Team-based Care
 Collaborative Leadership
 Patient-Centeredness

13. Roles & Responsibilities
• Communicate roles &
responsibilities
• Engage with others
to meet the needs of
the people &
populations served.
• Use complementary
skills of all team
members to optimize
care.

14. Values & Ethics
• Place the interests of patients and populations at the
center of health care.
• Respect unique cultural values and perspectives of
individuals, populations, and health professionals.
The D-P family is, like many Maine
families, struggling to make do
despite full-time employment. Mr.
D-P suffers with severe knee pain.
Mrs. D-P is anxious to return to work
but hasn’t been able to as both of
her children have special needs. Her
son has numerous health concerns
as well as development delays and
behavioral issues that have made it
difficult for him to attend traditional
day care.

15. Communication
• Use respectful and
appropriate
communication in all
situations
• Listen actively and
encourage ideas and
opinions of all team
members
• Become
knowledgeable about
the cultures in your
system & in the
community

16. Teams & Teamwork
• Work with others to
deliver patient-centered,
community-responsive
care.
• Integrate knowledge and
experience of other
professions to inform
effective clinical, ethical,
and systems-based
decisions.
While most recognize
the value of
collaboration and
teamwork they also
note many barriers
beginning with
different definitions of
team; lack of systems
integration; few
policies supporting
team practices; and
physical separation.

17. Collaborative Leadership
• Strong leaders value
contributions of all
health team members’
and also those of the
patient, family, and
community.
• Leaders facilitate
contributions from all
team members and
build support for
working together.

18. Purposeful Leadership
Consists of purposive efforts to
address social determinants of health
which negatively impact people and
change specific existing conditions,
policies and practices on behalf or
with a client group, community, or
population.
Oandasan, 2014

19. Person-Centeredness
• Respect for
complementary expertise
• Value for clients/patients
as a vital members of the
team
• Trust in each other & in
the team
• Value for clients’
perspectives and needs
• Connection & Compassion
• Commitment to shared
decision-making process

20. Person/Patient-Centeredness
Clinical
Providers
Invite & empower
people to engage
with choices &
adhere to prescribed
treatment protocols,
life style changes and
medication regimens.
Public Health
Provide tools to
inform & engage
consumers in health
decision-making, selfmanagement, and
health advocacy
Persons/
Patients
Capacity to
think critically &
make informed and
shared decisions in
collaboration with
health care teams

21. Qualities of Patient-Centeredness
Attitudes
o Respect for complementary expertise
o Value for patients as a vital members of the team
o Trust in each other & in the team
o Connection & Compassion
Actions
o Explicitly invite patients to be part of the health care team
o Introduce patients to empowering practice & facilitate skills
o Communicate openly, listen actively & respond effectively
o Engage patients in care planning & collaborate decision-making
o Consider utilization of an ongoing evaluation process
Modified from: Orchard, C, Shaw, L, & Culliton, S. Client-Centred Collaborative Care: From the patients’ perspective.
Journal of Interprofessional Care 2011.

22. Change

23. Workplace Learning
“People don’t learn by looking in the mirror. They learn
by talking with people who have different points of
view.”
Ronald Heifetz (1995)

24. Definition: Bi-Culturalism
Dual Identities
• Shared vision and
common goals for
health and health
practice
• Respect for
Distinctions between
professions and value
for the differential
roles played by
members of the team
Bi-Cultural Competencies
• Knowledge of Roles &
Responsibilities
• Communication
• Collaborative Teamwork
• Shared Values & Ethics

25. Culture Change
• A process of
institutional-systems
socialization (Ideas,
language, values, &
attitudes )
• Common vision and
mission statements
• Preferred
workplace/clinical
practices
• Common definitions of
health & principles of
health care delivery
Step 1:
Promote ideas that are meaningful to the
workplace & set common goals
Step 2:
Form an Inclusive Coalition and invite
meaningful change
Step 3:
Create a Common Vision for achievable change
Step 4:
Walk the Talk – reach out to colleagues
Step 5:
Appreciate small successes and build on them
Step 6:
Remove obstacles & sidestep barriers
Step 7:
Sustain momentum – establish a domino effect
Step 8:
Anchor change in the workplace

26. “We meet monthly to
discuss successes and
needed changes, which
allows us to know what
others value and how they
see their roles as educators.
Such knowledge allows us
to be expansive and
inclusive in our own
disciplines.”
“The more we work together
the more apparent it becomes
that we face tremendously
challenging health care issues
that can only be solved
through collaboration and
teamwork. There is
momentum to our
interprofessional efforts that
appears unstoppable.”

27. Learning from Pat’s Story
Mutual Support
Communication
Respect
Caring
Relationship
IP Collaboration
Patient Safety

28. Patricia Chalmers, 31
Patricia (Pat) Chalmers is a 31-year-old woman who prides herself on
self-sufficiency and resourcefulness. She works part-time as a
bookkeeper and gets paid to take care of her aging grandmother with
whom she lives.
Pat describes herself as having been a caretaker since adolescence. It is
therefore difficult for her to acknowledge her own needs or to seek
others for help.
Pat is tired of people commenting on her weight, diet, and need to
exercise. She avoids health care as much as possible because she
knows she’ll be told to lose weight or be blamed for “being fat” (her
words). “I know what risks I face” she says. “But I’ve tried everything
and nothing works. I’ve accepted my size and would like others to
respect that.”
Pat found herself in the ED with a broken ankle several months ago.
The break was significant enough to require surgery. Labs revealed
elevated glucose levels and surgery was put off until further tests could
be done to determine whether Pat might have diabetes. When asked
about this possibility, Pat reacted strongly. “I don’t have the time or
money for diabetes,” she explained.

29. Huddle
1. What do we know about Pat?
2. What professions might be important to Pat’s team?
3. What can we learn from other professions to improve the
quality of Pat’s care?
Social Work & Behavioral Health
Primary Care
Oral Health
Nursing
Support Staff
Rehabilitation

30. The Nexus
The next step forward is to increase the link between
future healthcare employers and campus-based
interprofessional educational initiatives.

31. Shared Learning Environments
Crossprofessional
preceptorships
6 Week Shared
Placements
Common
Client/Patient
Panel
Shared
Assignments
& Didactics
Clinical-Public
HealthSystems Health

32. “One of the best parts of this
interaction for me was the
ability to learn and share with
one another. I was able to share
my strengths as a student and
learn to appreciate the strengths
of student pharmacists. “
“Because we know each other
better, our interactions come
easier and smoother when it
comes to patient care… we feel
comfortable to chime in and the
visits became integrated in an
organic way.”
“We have the same goal:
to provide excellent
patient care, but we
approach this goal from
very different
perspectives.”

33. Shared Learning:
The Strategic Advantage

34. “Investment in IPE makes health professions programs
more competitive within the university”
•Increased understanding of other
departments and programs (internal
education)
•Leads to understanding of the valueadded by collaboration (e. g. shared
programming in common curriculum)
•Opportunities for large
interdisciplinary grants (HRSA)
•Enhances recruitment by
distinguishing program options from
other similarly designed institutions
•Opportunities for joint appointments
and creative hires
•Support for Scholarly productivity
and successful faculty
reappointment/tenure

35. Institutional Benefits
• Enhances the reputation of educational
institutions by creating a niche and
showing currency with health reform
• Increases potential for collaboration
between previously siloed programs and reduces costs to
the institution
• Increases opportunities for service learning and
community partnerships
• Attracts vibrant and innovative faculty
• Attracts interest of external funders
• Prepares students for workplace hires

36. Communicating IPE Messages
If you have IPE programming:
– Include IPE in recruitment materials
– Work to get internal and external press
– Find champions outside of IPE
– Publish
– Include IPE in your annual performance report
– Give Deans regular outcome-driven reports
– Give Deans “good news” to be shared
– Meet with Dean/Leadership about IPE return on investment
(ROI)

37. Communicating IPE Messages
If you are not yet engaged but are working to develop
IPE:
– Make sure to create clear vision and mission statements
and IPE principles
– Involve leadership early
– Invite national IPE educators to campus
– Gather literature and exemplars from other
similar institutions
– Provide evidence of ROI
– Have patience and don’t give up – Changing culture is a
process

39. Thank you
Shelley Cohen Konrad
PhD, LCSW
University of New
England
Director
Interprofessional
Education
Collaborative
Associate
Professor, School
of Social Work