Welcome to Interprofessional
Education 4 Faculty

The purpose of this module, then, is to introduce the roles, responsibilities, educational requirements, and scope of practice of health care practitioners. This knowledge forms the basis of functioning effectively in health care teams.  The General Competency Statement this module addresses is “use of one’s own role and those of other professions to appropriately assess and address the healthcare needs of the patients and populations served.”

The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) considers communication as a ‘core aspect of interprofessional collaborative practice’ (2011, p. 22). This module provides the learner with basic terminology, offers recommended literature on communication within healthcare teams, presents helpful models of communication to enhance teamwork, and examines elements that can enhance as well as detract from effective interpersonal interactions for healthcare teams.

As defined in the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Report, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality, (2003) an interdisciplinary (interprofessional) team is “composed of members from different professions and occupations with varied and specialized knowledge, skills, and methods.” (p. 54).  Members of an interprofessional team communicate and work together as colleagues, to provide quality, individualized care for patients.  Interprofessional teamwork as defined by the IOM (2003), is “a collaborative interaction among interprofessional team members to provide quality, individualized care for patients” (Texas Tech University HSC, 2012). Teamwork is necessary in any setting where health professionals interact with the shared goal of providing care for patients or communities. “Teamwork behaviors involve cooperating in the patient-centered delivery of care; coordinating one’s care with other health professionals so that gaps, redundancies, and errors are avoided; and collaborating with others through shared problem-solving and shared decision making, especially in circumstances of uncertainty” (IPEC, 2011, p. 24). Interprofessional teamwork is an essential part of patient-centered primary care, and “high-functioning teams require collaboration between physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, clinical psychologists, case managers, medical assistants, and clinical administrators…” (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2010, p. 2).  Interprofessional collaborative practice is viewed “as key to the safe, high quality, accessible, patient-centered care desired by all” (IPEC, 2011, p. i). To make this a reality, health professions students will need to develop interprofessional competencies as part of the learning process, in order to be ready to practice effective teamwork and team-based care when they enter the workforce.  The Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice address Teams and Teamwork of the interprofessional team as Competency Domain #4, and state “Learning to be interprofessional means learning to be a good team player” (IPEC, 2011, p. 24).  The purpose of this module is to introduce the role of teams and teamwork in effective interprofessional practice.

In order to deliver quality health care, health care professionals must be well-informed about the contributions of their own profession and other health professionals.  Ethics is a shared, relevant concern among health care professions and is an ideal vehicle for students and faculty from different fields to learn about one another’s professions and to participate in interprofessional discussions and problem-solving (IPEC, 2011; WHO, 2010).  Collaborative care respects the individual expertise of each profession, and mutual respect and trust are critical components for effective interprofessional working relationships for delivering collaborative care across health professions.  Gittell noted the relational link between interprofessional values and effective care coordination when describing the nature of relational coordination in health care: “Even timely, accurate information may not be heard or acted upon if the recipient does not respect the source” (2009, p. 16).  The purpose of this module is to introduce the role of values and ethics in effective interprofessional practice.  The Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice address Values and Ethics of the Interprofessional team as Competency Domain #1, and state “Interprofessional values and related ethics are an important, new part of crafting a professional identity, one that is both professional and interprofessional in nature” (IPEC, 2011, p. 17).