Pharmacists learning with other health professionals will become more common, new report predicts

"The ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team is an essential skill for all healthcare professionals. Learning together from an early stage increases understanding of the role of other professions and their contribution to patient care. This report provides numerous examples of different models to provide interprofessional education. At the University of Nottingham, we have a developed a mini-conference for pharmacy and physiotherapy students on pain management to develop clinical reasoning skills and to consider holistic approaches to patient care. Feedback from students about what they have learnt has been very positive."

Dr Roger Knaggs

The report, “Interprofessional education in a pharmacy context: Global report 2015”, is launched under the auspices of this year’s World Pharmacists Day theme of partnership. It presents examples of multidisciplinary education from around the world, which include the development of an interprofessional mini conference for pharmacy and physiotherapy students on pain at The University of Nottingham. An interprofessional learning mini-conference was developed during a comprehensive redesign of the undergraduate pharmacy curriculum at The University of Nottingham using an integrated approach to be more patient-focused. The mini-conference occurs during a module on pain and its management that covers relevant aspects of physiology, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics, clinical practice and professionalism and leadership and provides sufficient background scientific information to understand and describe the clinical use of commonly used analgesics and potential targets for novel analgesics. The mini-conference was an exciting opportunity for students to participate in collaborative learning and gain a deeper appreciation of the work and knowledge base of another profession. The aims of the conference were to develop clinical reasoning using problem-based learning via the consideration of holistic approaches to improving patient care and to develop novel multi-professional approaches to patient care.  

The report includes case studies from a number of developing countries

This type of education is set to become more common in classrooms and clinical settings, the report’s authors predict. “As the number and complexity of treatments grow, it’s no longer possible for any one health provider — no matter how knowledgeable — to be able to provide top quality care working in isolation,” said co-author Tina Brock.

Interprofessional education appears to be an area of pharmacy where developing countries are active, using new models that others can replicate. “In under-resourced countries, there is typically a shortage of health professionals. This provides additional motivation for professionals in emerging systems to combine forces and to include lower level personnel on their teams, as we have seen in Kenya,” Dr Brock said.

She added: “In the US and many western systems, we’re now spending significant resource in retraining people who were educated separately to work together in high performing teams. If under-resourced countries never build those professional ‘silos’, they will not have to expend precious resource to tear them down,” she said. 

Both FIP and the World Health Organization believe that interprofessional education is a foundation for a collaborative, practice-ready workforce and that this type of practice will strengthen health care systems and improve patient outcomes. “While there are many hurdles to moving interprofessional education forward, we have identified a variety of models and many successes in this area. We hope to expedite progress by sharing these examples,” said co-author Jill Boone.

FULL REPORT: “Interprofessional education in a pharmacy context: Global report 2015”