New IOM Report Explores Inter-professional Education for Healthcare Workforce

The latest report from the Institute of Medicine summarizes the work of the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education. The Forum held two workshops in 2012 focused on the connection between inter-professional education and collaborative practice. The report summarizes the results of the workshops.

Interprofessional Education for Collaboration: Learning How to Improve Health from Interprofessional Models across the Continuum of Education to Practice – Workshop Summary: Over the last 100 years, much of the landscape has changed with regards to the health professions and the settings in which these professionals work. There are many more types of health specialists addressing treatment and prevention of disease; the demographics of societies and the burden of disease have shifted; and technology is transforming health and educational systems. These demographic shifts and technological advances are causing many educators and health professionals around the world to call for new models for educating health professionals that better reflects the diseases and societies these students will be serving.

In 2010, a study from the global independent Commission on Education on Health Professionals for the 21st Century (the Lancet Commission) called for the formation of national forums as a way of bringing together educational, professional, and government leaders to share and gain perspectives on instructional and institutional reforms. This recommendation led to the formation of the IOM’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education.

In 2012, the global forum held its first two workshops, focusing on linkages between Interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice. The workshops set the stage for defining and understanding IPE and provided living histories of speakers from around the world who shared experiences working in and between Interprofessional education and Interprofessional or collaborative practice. This report summarizes the workshops.

For more information, click here.