Delivering high-quality and effective patient care is a multifaceted and complex endeavour. To achieve safe and effective practice paramedics and other healthcare professionals are required to collaborate with each other. The evidence continues to suggest that collaboration between professional groups can be challenging. Interprofessional education (IPE) offers a possible way to enhance interprofessional collaboration, and as a result of this, patient care. Paramedics are part of the interprofessional team and therefore have been and should continue to be a part of the IPE agenda.
Principles of IPE
The principles of IPE draw on the IPE literature, an evidence base, as well as the experience of healthcare professionals and the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE). The principles are underpinned by values that are common to (or should be common to) all healthcare professionals, and these include a commitment to equal opportunities and positive concern for difference, diversity and individualism. The principles can be of value to all of those who are involved in commissioning, designing, delivering and evaluating interprofessional education. CAIPE (2002) define IPE as occurring when there are two or more professions learning with, from and about each other, with the intention of improving collaboration and enhancing the quality of care. There are a number of terms used in the literature interchangeably and at times inconsistently, which can be unhelpful. It is acknowledged that IPE includes learning in the academic and work-based setting before and after qualification.
The benefit of IPE
Williams et al (2012) note that healthcare systems are evolving, and one aspect of this evolution is associated with the promotion of interprofessional practice. The expansion of successful and functional interprofessional practice can be best achieved through interprofessional learning. The importance of successful interprofessional working can be evidenced by the analysis of healthcare practitioner undergraduate curricula, which will usually incorporate elements of IPE. Questions must be asked, however, of those programmes that prepare paramedics using an isolationist, uni-professional educational approach to undergraduate programmes; are paramedic students being effectively prepared for their role and function within interprofessional healthcare environments? It is acknowledged, however, that the uni-professional context is a valuable arena for under graduate students to develop their knowledge, skills and behaviours that relate to their own and other professional groups; however, it fails to fully achieve the additional outcomes of interprofessional education.
The aim of IPE
The key goal of IPE must be to ensure that paramedic graduates are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to ensure they are able to work collaboratively for the benefits of their patients throughout their working lives. IPE is a life-long learning concept. IPE is one approach that can ensure this aspiration becomes a reality.
Interprofessional education recognises the reality of the complexity of healthcare provision. When single professions or individual professionals work in isolation, they do not have the breadth and depth of expertise to respond effectively to the complexity of many patient's needs, ensuring that care is safe, of a high quality, seamless and holistic.
The needs of the patient and the patient's best interests come to the fore when the principles of IPE are acted out. IPE encourages professions to learn with, from and about each other, respecting the integrity and contribution of each profession; all participants in the learning process are seen as equal learners, acknowledging that there may be differentials in power, position or status in the workplace.
‘IPE encourages professions to learn with, from and about each other’
One other potential outcome of IPE is that each profession can gain a deeper understanding of its own practice and how it can complement and reinforce that of others. IPE can sustain the identity and expertise of the paramedic profession, presenting the positively and distinctive role that paramedics contribute to in healthcare settings (whereever they may be).
Interprofessional education continues to develop, and is becoming established in a global context. The principles underpinning IPE can help to guide and assist this continuing development. Adopting and adapting the principles of IPE to your own context is not going to be the panacea for all ills that befall the need to work in a more collaborative way with the numerous professional groups. It may, however, help to achieve this aim. Further research is required into the impact IPE has on the care that paramedics deliver and also on how the profession sees itself in the wider healthcare environment.