The birth of a national network for interprofessional education and collaboration: results from an inter-university partnership

Abstract

The Philippine Interprofessional Education and Collaboration (PhIPEC) Conference is the first-ever national program held in the Philippines on interprofessional education and collaboration (IPEC). This project, initiated through an inter-university partnership between University of Santo Tomas and Angeles University Foundation, aimed to facilitate uniform understanding of IPEC across higher education institutions and health facilities as well as to instigate IPEC related researches in the country. The two-day conference was able to gather over 80 participants from more than 10 health and social care professions and 15 speakers who shared their expertise in health education and practice. Aside from these, the initiative has also gathered more than 500 followings in Facebook Page and 161 members in the mailing list. With the turn-out of this initiative, there was a move to rename the group into PhIPEC Network. The network has been agreed upon to serve as an informal entity that represents a collective of Filipino health and social care professionals towards advocating collaborative learning and health care services. Future directions were also determined focused on considering IPEC initiatives in education, practice, research, and policies.