Interprofessional Collaboration Among Complementary And Integrative Health Providers In Private Practice And Community Health Centers

Background: The current healthcare environment is placing increasing emphasis on interprofessional collaboration (IPC). IPC may be of particular importance to complementary and integrative health (CIH) providers who have historically practiced in silos. The extent to which these providers are collaborating with each other and with other providers is not known. Purpose: Investigate aspects of IPC occurring in a sample of CIH providers. Method: A qualitative health services study using semi-structured interviews. Discussion: CIH providers were found to be collaborating with each other and other providers. Subjects indicated IPC had a positive impact on practice and on patient care. Educating students and practitioners about other health disciplines was seen as being key to collaboration between professions, as was being able to communicate using terms others could understand. Conclusions: Results of this study can contribute to broadening the scope of IPC, improve clinical outcomes, improve efficiency for healthcare systems, and may be useful to institutions engaged in training CIH providers in development of curricular content.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjep.2019.02.00

Defining antimicrobial stewardship competencies for undergraduate health professional education in the United Kingdom: a study protocol

Multi-drug resistant infections have been identified as one of the greatest threats to human health. Healthcare professionals are involved in an array of patient care activities for which an understanding of antimicrobial stewardship is important. Although antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship competencies have been developed for healthcare professionals who adopt the role of a prescriber, competencies do not exist for other medicine-related stewardship activities. Undergraduate education provides an ideal opportunity to prepare healthcare professionals for these roles and activities. This report presents a protocol for a study designed to provide national consensus on antimicrobial stewardship competencies appropriate for undergraduate healthcare professional education. A modified Delphi process will be used in which a panel of Experts, comprising members from across the United Kingdom, with expertise in prescribing and medicines management with regard to the education and practice of healthcare professionals, and antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship, will be invited to take part in two survey rounds. The competencies developed will be applicable to all undergraduate healthcare professional education programmes. They will help to standardise curricula content and enhance the impact of antimicrobial stewardship education

New national curricula guidelines that support the use of interprofessional education in Brazilian context : an analysis of key documents

The National Curricular Guidelines (NCGs) are important documents for understanding the history of academic health professions education in Brazil. Key policies within the NCGs have helped to re-orient health professions education and have stimulated curricular changes, including active learning methodologies, more integrated teaching-service environments and, more recently, have introduced interprofessional education (IPE) in both undergraduate and postgraduate sectors. This paper presents the findings of a study that examined the NCGs for nursing, dentistry and medicine courses as juridical foundations for adopting strategies that promote IPE across higher education institutions in Brazil. We employed a comparative and exploratory documentary analysis to understand the role of IPE or collaborative practices in NCGs for the three largest professions in Brazil. Following a thematic analysis of these texts, four key themes emerged: faculty development; competencies for teamwork; curricular structure; and learning metrics. Key findings related to each of these themes are presented and discussed in relation to the wider interprofessional literature. The paper goes on to argue that the statements contained in the NCGs about adoption of IPE and collaborative practices will have an important influence in shaping the future of health professions education in Brazil