What is Interprofessional Practice and Education (IPE)?
The Center for Health IPE aligns with the World Health Organization's (WHO's) and Interprofessional Education Collaborative's (IPEC's) definitions pertaining to collaborative education, practice, and team-based care. Please view this page to see the national IPEC core competencies that guide interprofessional education and practice initiatives at UT Austin. Scroll down to view the center's criteria for developing an IPE experience.
Interprofessional Education
When students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes (WHO, 2010, p. 7).
Interprofessional Collaborative Practice
When multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, carers [sic], and communities to deliver the highest quality of care across settings (WHO, 2010, p.13).
Interprofessional Team-Based Care
Care delivered by intentionally created, usually relatively small work groups [consisting of different professions] in health care who are recognized by others as well as by themselves as having a collective identity and shared responsibility for a patient or group of patients (e.g., rapid response team, palliative care team, primary care team, operating room team). (IPEC, 2011, 2016, p.8)
UT Center for Health IPE's Criteria for an IPE Experience
Expanding upon the definitions above, the Center for Health IPE has established criteria for an IPE experience as follows:
- Involvement of learners* from at least two or more professions
- Intentionally designed/planned interactions between learners from different professions
- Participants learn about, from, and with each other
- Experience can be mapped to at least one or more IPEC core competency
- Experience targets person-centered care, population-oriented health, and/or health-system transformation
*Learners refer to students, faculty, practitioners, residents, staff, or other individuals involved in interprofessional learning.
