IPE (interprofessional education) enhances communication and collaboration across diverse healthcare teams, including representatives from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, social work, behavioral health, law enforcement, and more.
More and more institutions are looking to IPE to collectively prepare their learners for real-life care delivery, and many accrediting bodies are now including requirements for IPE.
Launched in 2009, Joint Accreditation is a collaboration of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Joint Accreditation allows organizations to be simultaneously accredited to provide medical, pharmacy, and nursing continuing education through a single, unified application process, fee structure, and set of accreditation requirements.
Via Joint Accreditation:
“To be eligible for Joint Accreditation, an organization needs to demonstrate that for the previous 18 months its structure and processes to plan and present education by and for the healthcare team have been fully functional; and that at least 25% of its educational activities have been designed by and for healthcare teams. In addition, the organization must demonstrate compliance with the Joint Accreditation criteria.
Jointly accredited continuing education providers must meet rigorous standards for educational quality and independence–including the ACCME Standards for Commercial Support: Standards to Ensure Independence in CME Activities.
With Joint Accreditation, ACCME, ACPE, and ANCC seek to assure the public that healthcare teams receive education designed to be independent, free from commercial bias, based on valid content, and effective in improving the quality and safety of care delivered by the team.”
Establishing an IPE program at your institution
Consider the IPE needs at your institution. Before deploying IPE, determine whether your curriculum will include several large-scale, in person IPE events per year; virtual IPE training held often, anywhere, and anytime; or a combination of both. Also research how you’ll schedule, assess, and debrief with your learners. In person events can be managed and recorded with AV-enabled simulation technology, and virtual IPE can be streamlined with the use of an on-demand, web-based IPE platform.
Making the grade with IPE
The World Health Organizations and other national and international health leadership groups have acknowledged IPE and team-based care as an essential element of improved healthcare delivery. New accreditation requirements include interprofessional education. These standards help education providers deliver interprofessional continuing education (IPCE) that’s implemented for the complexities of the modern healthcare delivery team.