Interprofessional collaboration among healthcare professionals is essential for patient safety and effective healthcare delivery. Despite this need, gaps in understanding and communication persist, particularly between physicians and nurses. To address this issue, we developed the “Understanding Nursing Interprofessional Team Experiences” (UNITE) program—an immersive interprofessional experience for first-year medical students at an academic institution without a nursing school. The program involves a 3–4-h clinical immersion shift where medical students work with staff nurses in high-performing units. Learner objectives sought to enhance medical students' ability to communicate with nurses and understanding of the nursing profession, the role of nurses on the interprofessional healthcare team, and the knowledge and skills nurses possess. Learner outcomes were measured using pre- and post-shift surveys for students and post-shift surveys for nurses. A total of 450 students participated in UNITE over 5 years. Following the immersion experience, most students agreed that they had a better understanding of nurses' roles (93.6%), were more open to learning from nurses (92.7%), and had greater respect for nurses’ skills (93.7%). Nurses rated M1s “excellent” or “very good” with regards to engagement during shift (98.7%), interest in learning (98.4%), interaction with patients (93.4%), and interaction with nurses (98.4%). The UNITE program demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of immersive nursing experiences in improving interprofessional collaboration, even at institutions without a nursing school. Survey instruments are included in Appendices A-C.
Oral health disorders pose one of the most significant health challenges, affecting up to 3.6 billion people worldwide. If left untreated, oral health disorders may lead to chronic pain, infections, lack of productivity, reduced quality of life, and even cancers of the oral cavity and lips. Pharmacists' contribution to dental medicine beyond medication counseling is not well known. This qualitative systematic review aims to assess the scope and extent of pharmacists’ contributions to dental health clinics.We conducted a full-text qualitative systematic review of available reports detailing pharmacy involvement in dental practice following PRISMA recommendations. We searched Cochrane, EBSCO, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA), PubMed, and Scopus for published articles written in English describing pharmacist impact in dentistry-related settings from database inception to February 4, 2025. The outcome of interest was to identify the types of existing pharmacy services in dental practice. We identified 1,934 articles for abstract screening; seventeen studies were included in the final review. Qualitative review was provided for each included article; risk of bias assessment was performed using the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool version 1.4. Overall, pharmacists appear to participate most in medication reconciliation, counseling, and medication therapy management (MTM), followed by antibiotic stewardship and management of complex and high-risk cases. PROSPERO ID: CRD42023438594. No funding sources to report.
People with disabilities experience health inequities due to the attitudes of healthcare professionals that carry stigma such as ableism. As a result, this event was developed in collaboration with people with disabilities. The learning activities included an opportunity to listen to a person with a disability share their experiences in health care; view a typical healthcare scenario followed by discussion; and participate in small group discussions led by people with disabilities. The objectives of the interprofessional education (IPE) event included: 1) increase the students' awareness and acceptance of people with disabilities, 2) enhance the students’ understanding of the need for multiple healthcare team members addressing the complex needs of people with disabilities, 3) identify the need for professionalism and patient-centered care for people with disabilities and 4) describe the benefits of interprofessional education to improve future services for people with disabilities that incorporate shared values, ethical conduct and mutual respect. The IPE event was assessed quantitatively pre/post session using the Attitudes and Perspective Toward Persons with Disabilities (APPD) Scale. Qualitative data from small focus groups was used to confirm or refute findings noted in the APPD scale using a convergent mixed methods approach.This study found that an IPE event focusing on the lived experiences of people with disabilities positively impacted students’ perceptions and attitudes related to the reduction of discomfort in providing care for people with disabilities and increased their understanding of the need for patient-centered care. This type of IPE event highlights the continued need for and importance of education on disability in healthcare and the value of involving healthcare professionals and people with disabilities as educators.
Ethical guidelines for health professions emphasize equitable treatment of people with disabilities, ensuring access to education, employment, personal growth, and social activities. Despite these guidelines, barriers continue to hinder the admission and success of students with disabilities in health professions programs. This paper highlights a 90-min interactive workshop presented at the 2024 National Academies of Practice Annual Forum, which explored these barriers alongside legal, accreditation, and ethical challenges. Led by an interprofessional team, the session incorporated case studies, open discussions, and small group activities, allowing participants to reflect on legal requirements, ableism, and the importance of inclusive education practices. Attendees, health professionals and educators from diverse fields, collaborated to identify systemic, environmental, and attitudinal obstacles to access. Through discussions of legal cases and the principles of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), participants analyzed challenges in implementing accommodations and proposed strategies for overcoming them. Positive feedback on program evaluations reflected the workshop's effectiveness in fostering dialogue and generating solutions. Participants highlighted the importance of universal design, interprofessional collaboration, and revising policies to better accommodate students with disabilities. By addressing ableism, shifting assumptions, and creating more inclusive learning environments, the workshop provided a platform for advancing equitable access to health professions education. The session reinforced the need for healthcare programs to not only comply with legal standards but also elevate ethical practices, ensuring a diverse healthcare workforce that better represents and serves patients with disabilities.
Teamwork, consisting of interdependent cooperative behaviors, is a critical component of interprofessional collaboration. Yet, interprofessional educators have frequently failed to recognize teamwork as a complex developmental process and measure it accordingly. This study sought to develop a measure of the shared perception of teamwork culture using cultural consensus analysis, a method frequently used in anthropological research. We assert that measuring shared perceptions of teamwork culture, rather than simply assessing the degree to which teams have adopted specific behaviors is an appropriate outcome, especially among early learners. Using qualitative data collected from a longitudinal interprofessional service-learning experience for first year health professions students, we developed a 15-item cultural consensus instrument. The instrument was employed during the successive year of the service-learning experience, and data was collected across four time periods. Data provided evidence that students felt teamwork behaviors were commonly used in their teams and the frequency that the behaviors were employed increased over time. On average, team consensus about behaviors ranged from low to moderate, generally increasing as the academic year progressed. Assessment data provided evidence that cultural consensus may be an effective way to assess a team's shared perceptions of teamwork behavior over time. We propose that within interprofessional teams, this shared perception represents a team's shared mental model. Regardless of whether the team has fully developed the desired teamwork skills and behaviors, this shared mental model serves as a foundation for ongoing learning and development.
Interprofessional education is essential for improving health outcomes and has been widely integrated into health professions’ education across the United States. The Interprofessional Education Collaborative established core competencies that provide a foundation for curriculum development. We have a sustained, innovative, longitudinal curriculum that engages over 600 health professional students annually. Prelicensure graduates are prepared to function in an interprofessional workforce, fostering collaboration to enhance patient care and outcomes.At the University of Colorado Anschutz, the curriculum spans over 2-4 years, consisting of five key components: Interprofessional Orientation, Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Course, Interprofessional Healthcare Ethics Course, Interprofessional Clinical Transformations, and Interprofessional Clinical Integrations. This curricular resource reports on the first three of these components and examines the curriculum's unique design, implementation, and impact, with a focus on student experiences and evaluations.
Background Successful interprofessional collaboration (IPC) will contribute to improvement of health outcomes, as stated by the WHO. However, the IPC initiatives that have been undertaken in hospitals show mixed results in terms of both the success of the implementation and the health outcomes. Knowledge of facilitating factors and barriers of IPC is essential for successful implementation in health systems. The aim of this scoping review is to identify facilitating factors and barriers to effective IPC in the hospital setting. Methods Three major databases (Medline, CINAHL, Embase) were systematically searched from 2010 to 7 November 2023. Studies were included if they explicitly reported on IPC, included factors in the hospital setting, and were published after the 2010 WHO framework on IPC. Studies were excluded if they focused on education or research. A thematic synthesis was conducted to identify facilitating factors and barriers. Results Fifty-three reports were included. 44 studies describe facilitating factors, while 47 studies mention barriers. Factors were categorised as relational, organisational, processual or contextual, following the framework for interprofessional teamwork. Relational factors are, by far, the most frequently and extensively described. Most factors are complementary (e.g. familiarity a facilitating factor, lack of familiarity a barrier). However, some factors were only described as barriers: legal responsibility, workload/other tasks, and gender. Interestingly, studies in other fields have found that gender diversity leads to better team performance and occupational well-being, which is different from the findings in IPC. Conclusions and implications This scoping review provided a comprehensive overview of facilitating factors and barriers to IPC. Many facilitating factors and barriers were found, most of which were different sides of the same coin. Key factors for effective IPC include: obtaining a shared goal; facilitating interprofessional identity; reducing dysfunctional hierarchies; reducing medical dominance; overcoming personal differences such as gender and race. These factors should be taken into account when designing IPC.
Introduction Humility has been increasingly recognized as essential to effective interprofessional collaboration, patient-centered care, and healthcare leadership. Despite growing interest in the construct, there remains a lack of instruments specifically designed to assess humility within healthcare and interprofessional practice contexts. Aim(s) To develop and evaluate the Professional Humility Scale (PHS), a novel instrument for assessing professional humility among healthcare professionals. Methods Guided by a contemporary unified validity framework, the PHS was developed through a multi-phase process involving theory-driven construct development, focus groups with practicing healthcare professionals, consultation of existing measures of humility and interprofessionalism, and psychometric evaluation. Evidence for content, substantive, structural, and external sources of validity was examined through expert-review and analysis of a national sample of 161 healthcare professionals. Results The PHS demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .89) and evidence supporting the interpretation and intended use of PHS scores. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that PHS scores explained meaningful variation in intellectual humility, open-minded thinking, patient-centeredness, and appreciation for the diversity, values, ethics, and expertise of other health professions. Conclusions The findings provide multiple sources of validity evidence supporting the use of the PHS as a measure of professional humility in interprofessional healthcare settings. The PHS offers researchers, educators, and healthcare leaders a tool for assessing a construct that may contribute to more effective, collaborative, and patient-centered healthcare delivery.
Medication errors are one of the most prominent causes of preventable medical harm leading to hospitalization or prolonged hospital stay. While delivering interprofessional education to combat these errors is crucial, organizing education which is engaging and interactive is challenging due to the logistical barriers. We therefore developed an interprofessional module in the Erasmus + funded “Preventing Risks of Pharmacotherapy: TEAching Multidisciplinary is the key” (PReP-TEAM) project, where serious gaming forms the core of the education. Serious gaming offers an interactive platform for students to engage in interprofessional collaboration accessible via a mobile device. Our target audience consists of medical, pharmacy, and nursing students in the final and penultimate years of their training. This module is delivered at four centers in the Netherlands, France, and Norway.We aimed to educate on the roles and responsibilities of physicians, pharmacists, and nurses in the medication process, leading causes for medication errors, and the importance of interprofessional collaboration in pharmacotherapeutic care. Students prepared for the module with an e-learning on pharmacotherapy. The synchronous sessions started with small group discussions on the division of roles and responsibilities, followed by break-out sessions in which students treated a virtual patient in the mobile application TeamUp!. The session was concluded with a faculty-led large group debrief and discussion on the barriers and facilitators to interprofessional collaboration. Student outcomes were measured using the Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Scale (ICCAS). The education was evaluated using a self-devised evaluation survey and focus-group interviews. Students showed improvements regarding interprofessional collaboration in their responses to the ICCAS and were enthusiastic about the interactive learning experience.
Palliative care and hospice are often under-addressed in the curricula of health professional educational programs. This curricular resource for hospice and palliative care simulation was completed by second-year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD), junior nursing, and first- and second-year chaplaincy students at a private, Christian university in February 2025. We evaluated the impact of the interprofessional simulation on students’ attainment of IPEC competencies and palliative care self-efficacy. The simulation facilitated interprofessional education (IPE) that enabled students to work together in teams to care for and interact with a standardized patient in a hospice setting. Students completed a holistic health assessment and created a team care plan during a simulation with a standardized patient with ovarian cancer who failed chemotherapy. The activity was conducted in a large classroom, with simulations occurring in multiple small exam rooms. Student outcomes were measured with matched pre-and post-simulation surveys which included demographic questions and two reliable and valid tools: Palliative Care Self-Efficacy Scale (PCSES) and Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Survey-Revised (ICCAS-R). In total, 34 nursing, 20 pharmacy students, and 4 chaplaincy students completed the surveys. Results demonstrated a significant improvement in perceived interprofessional and palliative care competencies. This interprofessional education experience provided an opportunity for students to increase their self-efficacy with palliative care and to enhance their collaboration and communication skills while working in interprofessional teams.
Background Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is essential for person-centered care yet sustaining it across organizational boundaries remains challenging. Collaborative learning is often viewed as key to strengthening IPC, but little is known about how it unfolds in day-to-day interprofessional practice. Aim To examine how professionals perceived collaborative learning and the conditions shaping it in an interprofessional community network, and how learning was enacted in routine practice. Methods An exploratory qualitative case study was conducted in a municipality-based interprofessional community care network in the Netherlands coordinating support for community-dwelling older adults with complex health and social care needs. Twelve professionals (healthcare, social work, municipal services) participated in interviews; seven of eight routine network meetings were observed over 14 months. Reflexive thematic analysis integrated interview and observation data. Results Interviews framed collaborative learning mainly as everyday coordination, information exchange, and relationship building; learning was described as relational and spontaneous rather than intentional or structured. Observations showed collegial, agenda-driven meetings that supported continuity and trust, yet offered few moments of collective reflection or follow-up, leaving learning largely implicit and individually experienced. Conclusion Collaborative learning in this network was often conflated with collaboration itself. Making learning a supported, visible, deliberate, and shared process may help networks foster collective reflection and improvement in interprofessional care.
Simulation-based interprofessional education enhances teamwork and communication skills among health professions students; however, logistical constraints often limit scalability. This article describes a curricular resource that integrates structured observation into a hybrid interprofessional education simulation for physical therapy and nursing students. The activity involved a one-time 2.5-h live standardized patient simulation focused on acute hospitalization and discharge planning for a patient with Parkinson's disease, with synchronous remote observation enabling broad student participation. Faculty from both disciplines collaboratively facilitated pre-briefing, simulation, and debriefing sessions to model interprofessional practice. Student outcomes were assessed using validated measures of interprofessional self-efficacy, readiness for interprofessional learning, and perceptions of interprofessional education. Pretest–posttest analyses revealed significant improvements across all outcome measures, with the strongest effects observed for self-efficacy and perceptions of interprofessional collaboration. This hybrid simulation model demonstrates a practical and sustainable approach to engaging large student cohorts in interprofessional learning while maintaining educational quality and promoting meaningful collaborative competencies.
Background Few instruments exist to capture interdisciplinary healthcare professionals' (HCPs) health literacy (HL) sensitivity, such as knowledge, skills, and attentive attitudes, to pursue HL when communicating with patients and their caregivers effectively. Objective This study aims to report on the psychometric properties of The Instrument of Health Literacy Competencies (IOHLC) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedures on data from a sample of HCPs working in specialist healthcare services in Norway. Methods The nine scales of the original Chinese IOHLC were translated and adapted from English into Norwegian using a forward-backward translation procedure and cognitive interviews. For the psychometric evaluation, a cross-sectional survey of 288 HCPs was conducted in a medium-sized hospital in Norway from July 2022 to September 2022. The statistical analysis included correlation analysis (Persons R), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), and CFA. Results The cognitive interviews led to changes in wording and the inclusion of an additional item in the survey. Nine one-factor models resulted in an acceptable fit (i.e., >0.6), comprising 36of the 40 items in the original version. Four items were excluded due to a low loading. In the final version, comprising 36 items, the alpha for internal consistency was 0.7 and above. Conclusions The CFA analysis yielded 36 items from the original IOHLC with an acceptable model fit. Further studies on the psychometric properties of the Norwegian version in other settings and with a larger sample are needed.
Interprofessional collaboration is essential in high-acuity clinical environments, particularly in the management of acute respiratory compromise. Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioners (AGACNPs) and Respiratory Therapists (RTs) frequently collaborate in these settings; however, structured interprofessional education (IPE) experiences involving these disciplines remain limited in many academic curricula. Case-based learning offers an effective strategy for simulating real-time clinical decision-making and promoting interprofessional communication and role clarity.This curricular resource describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a case-based interprofessional learning activity focused on the management of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) requiring intubation. AGACNP and RT students participated in mixed-discipline teams to analyze a complex patient scenario and collaboratively develop a plan of care. Learner outcomes were assessed using post-activity reflective summaries analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings highlighted the importance of communication strategies, mutual respect, role clarity, and scope of practice awareness in supporting effective collaboration. This resource provides a feasible, adaptable approach for integrating interprofessional learning into acute care curricula and may be modified for other high-acuity clinical scenarios.
The objective of the interprofessional education (IPE) day was to educate students on commonly taboo topics that affect social determinants of health – domestic abuse, human trafficking, substance abuse and suicide prevention – and how to professionally address them. A second objective was to expose students to the four IPEC Core Competencies. Topics were taught in a morning session with expert speakers, followed by a live, interprofessional simulation highlighting healthcare professions’ roles in caring for a patient experiencing domestic and substance abuse. Students were assessed qualitatively through individual reflections written with guided prompts targeting the four IPEC core competencies for recurrent themes.A total of 369 students from four universities in our state including pharmacy, dental medicine, physician assistant, osteopathic physician, nursing, physical therapy, and respiratory therapy disciplines participated. Recurrent themes identified in coding reflection papers included: collaboration or collaborative care, understanding roles and responsibilities, patient and provider education, need for increased awareness, need for patient screening, and newly learned strategies or resources. This IPE day could be replicated as is or adapted to meet the needs of different institutions and patient populations. Format Large group, interprofessional didactic morning session with expert speakers on each topic followed by a live, interprofessional simulation with a patient experiencing domestic and substance abuse. Target audience First-year physician assistant and second-year pharmacy, dental medicine, osteopathic physicians, nursing, physical therapy, and respiratory therapy students. Objectives Thematic analysis of individual student reflection papers written with guided prompts targeting the four IPEC core competencies for knowledge and skills gained.
Identifying opportunities for interprofessional education (IPE) once medical students begin their clinical rotations can be challenging for many reasons. Students desire immersive experiences with educational content that is authentic and appropriate for their level of training. In 2023, leaders from the Doctor of Medicine (MD) curriculum and the Office of Interprofessional Practice and Education (OIPE) at The Ohio State University (OSU) collaborated to design a new module for medical students that teaches interprofessional (IP) collaborative competencies within a set of required third year clinical rotations that span the care of patients across the lifespan, Understanding Patients Within Populations (PWP). This curricular module is longitudinal and was developed for third-year medical students to enable immersive learning that builds knowledge and skills in interprofessional collaboration (IPC). Students were asked to critically reflect on interprofessional teamwork in the clinical setting through written reflections and then participated in a medical student only synchronous small-group session that included a review of their written assignments and a simulated case discussion. Following the small-group sessions, medical students completed the Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey and the Continuous Quality Improvement Survey. Of the 251 medical students who completed the surveys (92% response rate), most found the module effective and relevant to their future work, showed statistically significant gains in their interprofessional collaborative competencies (all p < 0.001; Cohen's d = 0.61–0.97), and reported feeling more prepared to collaborate across professions, with no notable differences between cohorts. This series of activities was well received by students and relatively easy to implement.
Background U.S. health professions programs have expanded interprofessional education (IPE) since introducing the IPEC Core Competencies and the Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative guidance. However, organizational IPE models vary widely and are inconsistently resourced. The 2022 American Interprofessional Health Collaborative (AIHC) Organizational Models survey generated extensive open-ended responses that remained underexplored. Objective To interpret how U.S. institutions organize, sustain, and adapt IPE and to identify organizational attributes that may inform future design and evaluation of IPE infrastructure. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of de-identified open-ended responses (n = 117) from the 2022 AIHC national survey. Using hermeneutic exegesis within a reflexive thematic analysis orientation (interpretivist paradigm), we stripped item labels, de-identified and randomized the corpus, and withheld a priori research questions during initial coding. We analyzed text in three interprofessional dyads (six analysts), independently open-coded meaning units, then engaged in dyad synthesis, cross team negotiation, and full group consensus. Reflexive notetaking and a versioned audit trail enhanced credibility and dependability. Results Eleven themes characterized how institutions described organizing IPE: 1) institutional culture and planning; 2) centralized administrative structures (CAS); 3) reporting/accountability; 4) leadership engagement; 5) formal IPE centers; 6) shared governance; 7) budgeting/resource allocation; 8) grants and external funding; 9) faculty roles, FTE, and development; 10) interprofessional practice placements; and 11) evaluation and impact. Respondents associated CAS, defined roles/FTE, and practice-based placements with perceived program robustness, while variability in leadership engagement and resources constrained continuity and scale. Evaluation practices ranged from validated tools to informal self-assessment; few sites reported systematic tracking beyond learner outcomes. Conclusion Institutions described convergent needs for centralized coordination, formalized and recognized IPE faculty roles, purposeful practice-based experiences, and fit-for-purpose evaluation. Findings inform design considerations for sustainable IPE infrastructure and outline a pragmatic agenda for evaluating organizational enactment and learner-to-practice transfer.
Interprofessional education (IPE) has expanded substantially over the past two decades, grounded in the expectation that shared training will translate into collaborative, team-based practice and improved health outcomes. Yet, evidence linking IPE to sustained workforce integration and system-level impact remains mixed. Audiology provides an instructive case study of this disconnect. A doctoral-level health profession with competencies spanning hearing and balance assessment, rehabilitation, counseling, and longitudinal chronic disease management, audiology has remained structurally under-integrated within interprofessional care models despite its clinical relevance to aging, cognitive health, fall prevention, and chronic disease. This Perspective argues that audiology's experience reflects misalignment among education, scope-of-practice policy, and payment policy governing how professions are integrated into care delivery—rather than professional failure or overreach. Recent federal and state modernization efforts signal a transitional policy moment that reframes audiology's role as integrative rather than expansionary. By examining audiology alongside established interprofessional partnerships—such as otolaryngology, physical and occupational therapy, lifestyle medicine, and family medicine—this article highlights broader implications for IPE and workforce planning. Crucially, scope modernization alone is insufficient: aligning educational capacity, institutional infrastructure, and workforce readiness alongside policy authorization is essential for interprofessional collaboration to move from aspiration to functional design.
