Interprofessional education: a vital concern and a lever to better primary care.

Primary care education requires a paradigm shift, to speed up a widespread adoption of interprofessional education (IPE). An increasing sense of urgency can be identified by the need to develop educational programmes aimed at integrated primary care. A comprehensive integrated and interdisciplinary approach at the primary healthcare level is needed, to shift from problem-oriented to goal-oriented care, in order to avoid inequity by disease. Primary care is a source of comprehensive care that integrates and coordinates care for all health and social problems and engages individuals, families and the community. Horizontal primary care provides the opportunity for integration and addresses chronic conditions, which are influenced by patients’ perception and behaviour. Regarding the challenge of approaching non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in people-centred integrated primary care, sufficient and well-trained health professionals provide strong added value. Therefore, IPE and associated concepts are of key importance to meet the future demands of changing needs in primary care. According to the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE), IPE occurs when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care. CAIPE uses the term ‘interprofessional education’ to include all such learning in academic and work-based settings before and after qualification, adopting an inclusive view of ‘professional’. It is this broad range of educational activities that is needed to shift the paradigm in education involving medicine and healthcare. IPE will enable professionals to deliver better integrated care and offer the patient healthcare in a co-ordinated and ‘seamless’ process. According to the literature on integration of care, IPE is part of the socalled ‘professional integration’ dimension. Professional integration can be defined as interprofessional partnerships with shared accountability arrangements for the delivery of services to a defined population. The European Forum of Primary Care (EFPC) is developing a position paper on IPE. The EFPC is not the first platform that sees the education of professionals as a serious concern. The following examples show the importance of IPE on a broader international level: