Promoting Interprofessional Collaboration in Biomedical Research | Biomedgrid

Health professionals working in silos or in ways that are not collaborative is no longer sustainable for healthcare [1]. For over 20 years national and international professional organizations have sought the reform necessary to educate health professional student in an interprofessional (i.e. interdisciplinary) manner. The impetus for this reform came in 2000 when the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the report “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System”[1]. This influential document outlined the deficits in health care quality and safety in the United States and how the development of interdisciplinary teams could be solution. In 2003, the IOM restated the urgency to promote interprofessional education (IPE) in the curriculum for all health care professions to increase health care quality [2] . The World Health Organization's (WHO) 2010 Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice suggested that IPE training would seek to have trainees learn “with, from, and about” one another's disciplines, training, and scopes of practice as a way to increase health care quality and safety [3]. In 2003, the IOM reiterated the link between interdisciplinary teamwork and health care quality. In 2011, the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) published Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice [4] and an update was provided in 2016 with the same title [5].