Interprofessional education for collaborative practice: views from a global forum workshop.

Societal changes around the world have resulted in new public health challenges; larger, more complex and uncoordinated delivery systems encompassing acute and chronic care; a greater reliance on technology; and a serious maldistribution of health workforce resources to address primary care demands. In response, collaboration is becoming an essential component of health promotion and disease management (Humphreys et al., 2012; Leurs, Mur-Veeman, van der Sar, Schaalma, & de Vries, 2008; Odum & Whaley-Connell, 2012; Padget, Bekemeier, & Berkowitz, 2004). The need for effective interprofessional collaboration and teamwork to achieve better health for all and improved personal care at better value requires partnerships beyond the traditional health professions, extending to nonprofessional, frontline health workers, such as community health workers and non-health related professions. Although there has been growing transformation of delivery systems to address current challenges, educators have been largely unresponsive to the need to transform health professions’ education to better align with the needs and expectations of providers and the public. This editorial highlights ideas presented in a summary report of the first two international workshops, hosted by the Institute of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education (IOM, 2013). The report provides descriptions of and reactions to personal experiences with interprofessional collaboration from national and international educators and health providers. Key messages reiterate and extend the substance of the two major reports on which the IOM’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education is based (Frenk et al., 2010; IOM, 2011). The Forum report looks at examples of teamwork and collaboration in education and practice that use interprofessional education (IPE) to achieve better patient care; to obtain better health outcomes; and to increase the value of educational and health care systems relative to outcomes. Although we write here as individuals, we were instrumental in planning the workshops and identifying speakers who presented positive patient care and population health outcomes using interprofessional education to enhance the value of interprofessional collaboration.