Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC): History, Core Competencies Revision Project, and Implementation for Collaborative Care

According to the World Health Organization, interprofessional education or “IPE” occurs when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes. In January 2009, six U.S. health professions associations joined forces to foster a common vision for team-based care, promote efforts to reform health care delivery and financing consonant with that vision, and contribute to development of leaders and resources for substantive interprofessional learning. The associations formed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) which developed and published the IPEC Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice. The core competencies document, which has been widely disseminated and utilized has recently undergone a comprehensive revision process that will result in the third version of the IPEC Core Competencies. The revision process was highly inclusive of all IPEC members. A very structured and iterative approach was developed and implemented that regularly considered input from a wide range of stakeholders. Among more detailed revisions, some of the broader constructs that are now included in the current version are diversity, equity and inclusion, interprofessional leadership, the concept of One Health, the importance of wellbeing and resilience, and the practice of team science. Although the IPEC Core Competencies have been extensively used in health professions didactic curricula, the ability to regularly provide students with meaningful interprofessional, collaborative care experiences in clinical settings have been challenging. The creation of a new, innovative clinical and academic facility at one U.S. academic institution to address this challenge will be described. The facility is designed to provide comprehensive primary health care services to the public, while providing an integrated clinical learning environment for students to obtain collaborative care experiences.