Principles of Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice

Original Editor - Ewa Jaraczewska based on the course by Angela Patterson

Top Contributors - Ewa Jaraczewska and Jess Bell  

Introduction

Effective patient care requires collaborative approaches across disciplines. When professionals from different fields coordinate their efforts, patient outcomes improve, costs decrease, and the care experience improves for patients and providers. This collaboration does not happen by chance. Interprofessional education (IPE) prepares practitioners for collaboration, while interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) puts that preparation into practice. This page explores the conceptual foundations of IPE and IPCP, and how they contribute to improving care and health outcomes.

IPE and IPCP Historical Development

The World Health Organisation (WHO) first raised the issue of interprofessional education in 1969. Three years later, the Institute of Medicine in the United States called for the integration of professional training programmes that had historically operated in isolation from one another. In 1988, a WHO study group conducted formal studies of interprofessional approaches, furthering the global understanding of interprofessional education. The issue became urgent in 1999, when the Institute of Medicine released its report on patient safety. This document connected preventable harm directly to failures in teamwork and communication. It framed interprofessional collaboration as a patient safety imperative. Subsequent reports called for a competency-based approach to health professions education that included collaborative capabilities. By 2010, the WHO had published a comprehensive international framework, and the following year, a group of North American health professions organisations came together to define shared core competencies for collaborative practice. These competencies have been updated over time, most recently in 2023, reflecting the evolving understanding of collaborative practice.

WHO IPE and IPCP Definitions

Interprofessional education occurs when students from different professions "learn about, from, and with each other" to facilitate effective collaboration and enhance health outcomes. Students develop an understanding of what other professions do, gain knowledge and insight from them, and share learning experiences together.

Interprofessional collaborative practice is when health professionals from different backgrounds work together with patients, families, and communities to deliver care of the highest quality.

The relationship between the two concepts is sequential and purposeful. Education creates readiness, and collaborative practice is its expression. Interprofessional learning during training prepares healthcare providers for the daily reality of working within rehabilitation teams, hospital wards, primary care settings, and community programmes, where no single profession holds all the answers.

This optional video provides a general introduction to IPE and IPCP.

EmbedVideo is missing a required parameter.

IPE Model of Education

IPE Model of Education

The IPE definition contains three distinct learning components: (1) learning about other professions, (2) learning from other professions, and (3) learning with other professions.

Learning about other professions involves gaining knowledge of other professions' roles, responsibilities, scopes of practice, and unique contributions to care. Learning from other professions requires active engagement, where students gain insight through direct interaction with peers from other disciplines. Learning with other professions is the prerequisite that makes the other two components possible. Students must come together, whether physically or virtually, to share learning experiences rather than engage in parallel activities.

Interprofessional Education and Learning Continuum

Interprofessional education is a progressive journey that begins in foundational education and extends through postgraduate study, continuing professional development, and the accumulated experience of practice. Early in this continuum, the focus is on building awareness and positive attitudes toward collaboration. Over time, knowledge and skills develop, and collaborative behaviours eventually become embedded in day-to-day clinical practice. It is at this final stage that the benefits to patients and health systems become most visible.

This continuum unfolds within a broader context of enabling and interfering forces. Professional cultures, institutional structures, workforce policies, and financing arrangements can all either support or undermine collaborative practice. Recognising these contextual factors is part of developing as an interprofessional practitioner. It is about understanding not only how to collaborate, but also how to navigate the organisational and systemic conditions within which collaboration must take place.

Models of Teamwork

Not every form of professional cooperation in healthcare qualifies as interprofessional collaboration. In a unidisciplinary arrangement, professionals within a single discipline collaborate but work independently of other fields. Multidisciplinary approaches bring several professions into contact with the same patient, but each tends to operate in parallel, with limited interaction across disciplines, and sometimes with conflicting goals. Intraprofessional collaboration involves professionals from different specialities within the same profession, such as a cardiologist and a neurologist working on a shared case.

The goal of IPE is to promote truly interprofessional teamwork. This involves deliberate, structured effort across professional boundaries, with shared decision-making, open communication, and collective accountability for patient outcomes. Research indicates that genuine interprofessional approaches improve clinical outcomes, reduce costs, enhance patient experience, and support the well-being of healthcare providers.

Patient-Centred Approach

A fundamental principle of interprofessional collaboration is that the patient, with their family and caregivers, must remain at the centre of all collaborative effort. This principle shapes how teams organise themselves and how decisions are made. When interprofessional collaboration is functioning well, each profession brings its unique perspective on the patient's situation. Those perspectives are integrated in service of goals that patients themselves have helped to define. However, if, for example, a physiotherapy plan is developed without input from other professions or the patient's own priorities, it is incomplete, even if it reflects excellent reasoning.

IPEC Core Competencies

Core Competencies for Collaborative Practice

The Interprofessional Education Collaborative has identified four core competencies that provide a framework for developing collaborative capability throughout a professional career, from student training through to clinical practice:

1. Values and ethics: this competency emphasises the need to work with individuals of other professions in ways that maintain mutual respect and shared values.
2. Roles and responsibilities: this competency requires that each professional understand not only their own role but also those of other professions to appropriately assess and address healthcare needs.
3. Interprofessional communication: this competency involves the ability to communicate with patients, families, and professional colleagues in a manner that supports team-based care.
4. Teams and teamwork: this competency involves applying relationship-building values and team dynamic principles to function effectively in different team roles.

These four competencies are not independent. Effective communication depends on understanding roles. Shared values make teamwork possible. Clarity about responsibilities enables the purposeful coordination that benefits patients. Developing these competencies means cultivating both a strong professional identity and the flexibility to integrate this identity within a larger collaborative system.

Professional vs Interprofessional Identity

Effective interprofessional collaboration depends on each professional contributing expertise that others cannot replicate. For example, a physiotherapist brings a unique understanding of movement, function, and rehabilitation. That contribution is most valuable when it is offered within a framework of collaboration rather than professional isolation. This requires the ability to understand how one's own expertise fits within the larger group of professionals, to seek input from colleagues whose perspective differs, and to share responsibility for outcomes. The goal is not to make all professions the same but to integrate their unique contributions. Differences in perspective are strengths, not weaknesses, but only when they are understood and respected.

The following scenario illustrates how professional distinctiveness and collaborative interdependence reinforce each other:

Maria is an older adult admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation unit following a hip fracture. She has a history of falls and lives alone in a two-storey home. The physiotherapist assessed her mobility, identified balance and strength deficits, and developed a progressive rehabilitation programme.

Interprofessional collaboration: At the weekly team meeting, colleagues shared information that helped shape the overall plan. The occupational therapist had completed a home assessment and identified environmental hazards, including poor lighting on the stairs and a lack of grab rails in the bathroom. The nurse reported that Maria was reluctant to mobilise in the mornings due to pain and that a recent medication change appeared to be affecting her alertness. The social worker noted that Maria had limited family support and was anxious about returning home alone.

Outcome: The team coordinated their approach. The physiotherapist adjusted session timing to later in the day when Maria was more alert and comfortable, and worked with the occupational therapist to incorporate stair practice and functional transfers into the rehabilitation programme. The nurse liaised with the medical team about pain management and medication timing. The social worker arranged a community support package and follow-up visits. Maria was discharged with a tailored home exercise programme, environmental modifications in place, and ongoing community support.

Resources

• Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice
• Interprofessional Education Guidelines