In interprofessional education, learners from different health professions practice working together. Its focus is collaboration: understanding responsibilities, exchanging information, and making a coordinated contribution to care. Simply placing several professions in the same lecture does not show that they practiced collaboration.
The Interprofessional Education Collaborative, or IPEC, publishes a framework for this work. Its most recent listed edition is Version 3, released in November 2023. The framework addresses values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, communication, and teams and teamwork. It provides educational expectations rather than a guarantee that one course will produce better patient outcomes.
Design around a shared task
A useful learning activity gives participants a problem that requires contributions from more than one perspective. Each learner should understand both their own contribution and what they need from others. The exercise should also leave room for the patient's priorities, rather than treating coordination as an agreement only among professionals.
For an instructor, practical design questions include who needs to participate, which collaboration behavior will be observed, and how the team will receive feedback. The task should not depend on one profession doing all the reasoning while everyone else watches. For an exercise run as a simulation, plan a debrief in which each profession can explain its decisions.
An illustrative case conference
In a fictional exercise, nursing, pharmacy, and social work learners discuss a patient's transition home. The case includes a question about understanding the medication plan and a concern about access to follow-up. Participants explain what information they need, identify who can help resolve each question, and agree on how the plan will be communicated.
The facilitator could observe whether the team invites each contribution, clarifies responsibility, and checks that the patient's stated priorities remain visible. The exercise does not require students to perform outside their educational preparation. Its purpose is to practice coordination within the scenario's boundaries.
Assess collaboration, not just participation
Attendance is easy to count, but it does not establish what was learned. Ask participants to describe a contribution from another profession that changed their understanding. Observe whether requests are clear and whether unresolved issues are assigned for follow-up.
Feedback should distinguish a gap in clinical knowledge from a gap in teamwork. A learner who knows the relevant information but does not communicate it needs different support from a learner who does not yet understand the topic. Team performance and individual performance also need to be distinguished when grades are involved.
Carrying learning forward
After the activity, identify one behavior to practice in the next supervised setting. Examples include introducing one's role, asking another professional to explain a concern, or confirming the person responsible for a pending action. These are suggested learning goals, not evidence of an outcome already achieved.
Interprofessional education does not erase professional boundaries or make responsibilities interchangeable. It helps learners understand how separate responsibilities connect. For nursing students, the value of the exercise should be explained alongside the nursing competencies and clinical experiences it supports.
Related
Nursing Simulation · Debriefing After Simulation.
Sources
- IPEC: Version 3 Competency and Sub-Competency Statements (2023) (accessed 2026-09-17).
- IPEC: Core Competencies (accessed 2026-09-17).