World Health Organization 2010 IPECP
| World Health Organization (2010) Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice (IPECP). World Health Organization, Geneva. http://www.who.int/hrh/nursing_midwifery/en/ |
World Health Organization (2010) World Health Organization Geneva
Abstract: At a time when the world is facing a shortage of health workers, policy-makers are looking for innovative strategies that can help them develop policy and programmes to bolster the global health workforce. The Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice highlights the current status of interprofessional collaboration around the world, identifies the mechanisms that shape successful collaborative teamwork and outlines a series of action items that policy-makers can apply within their local health system (Figure 1). The goal of the Framework is to provide strategies and ideas that will help health policy-makers implement the elements of interprofessional education and collaborative practice that will be most beneficial in their own jurisdiction.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners recognize interprofessional collaboration in education and practice as an innovative strategy that will play an important role in mitigating the global health workforce crisis.
- Interprofessional education occurs when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.
- Interprofessional education is a necessary step in preparing a “collaborative practice-ready” health workforce that is better prepared to respond to local health needs.
- A collaborative practice-ready health worker is someone who has learned how to work in an interprofessional team and is competent to do so.
- Collaborative practice happens when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, carers and communities to deliver the highest quality of care. It allows health workers to engage any individual whose skills can help achieve local health goals.
- After almost 50 years of enquiry, the World Health Organization and its partners acknowledge that there is sufficient evidence to indicate that effective interprofessional education enables effective collaborative practice.
- Collaborative practice strengthens health systems and improves health outcomes.
- Integrated health and education policies can promote effective interprofessional education and collaborative practice.
- A range of mechanisms shape effective interprofessional education and collaborative practice. These include:
- - supportive management practices
- - identifying and supporting champions
- - the resolve to change the culture and attitudes of health workers
- - a willingness to update, renew and revise existing curricula
- - appropriate legislation that eliminates barriers to collaborative practice.
- Mechanisms that shape interprofessional education and collaborative practice are not the same in all health systems. Health policy-makers should utilize the mechanisms that are most applicable and appropriate to their own local or regional context.
- Health leaders who choose to contextualize, commit and champion interprofessional education and collaborative practice position their health system to facilitate achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
- The Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice provides policy-makers with ideas on how to implement interprofessional education and collaborative practice within their current context.
• Bioblast editor: Gnaiger E
