Our recent conference on interprofessional education (IPE) further crystallized for me the sense that IPE is at a tipping point and fueled my resolve to bring IPE into the mainstream of health professions education. As I reflect on what was shared and discussed at the conference, I am excited anew by the very real possibility we have to grow this movement and implement IPE on a large scale. As we move forward, there are three underlying principles that the conference helped illuminate and which I believe must guide our future efforts:
First, we must remain focused on our goal and articulate the purpose of IPE more clearly than ever: that it is a means to improve the quality of care given to patients. Teams that work well together provide better care, but that is a message that too few have heard. We are not pursuing IPE as an end in itself.
Second, it is time to choose a path. As I said on the final day of the conference, letting a thousand flowers bloom works for a while, but we have to select what’s working in IPE. We cannot do it all. We need to ask what ideas we have developed that can be brought to scale and truly become indispensable features of health professions education.
Third, we need to unite education reform with practice reform. Neither can work in isolation.
Over the coming months the Foundation will prepare the conference’s proceedings and include recommendations on the future direction of IPE. It will be up to all of us—attendees, grantees, and others—to choose a path for IPE that advances us to the point where all health professionals at all schools see and experience interprofessional education as integral to their preparation for practice.
I must thank each participant, panelist, and faculty member for bringing the thinking and discussion to the point where we now find it and for their roles in making our recent conference a resounding success. We look ahead to higher hurdles for IPE, but it will be thanks to you when we summit them.
Read more conference coverage:
- Scott Reeves, Director of the Center for Innovation in Interprofessional Healthcare Education, believes IPE is at a tipping point.
- Don Berwick, former CMS Administrator, speaks of health care’s “triple aim” and how it applies to IPE
- Dr. David Irby of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), moderates a panel on IPE and patient-centeredness.