The Role and Rise of Interprofessional Continuing Education

Abstract

For decades, health leadership organizations have identified interprofessional education and team-based care as a critical component of health care quality and safety. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has issued a series of reports demonstrating the relationship between poor team performance and negative patient outcome and has called on accreditors, licensing and certifying bodies to use their oversight processes as levers for change. Toward that end, three of the national accreditors in medicine, nursing and pharmacy collaborated to create a unified accreditation system, setting standards for interprofessional continuing education (IPCE) and establishing an IPCE credit that designates activities planned by and for health care teams. There is evidence supporting the relationship between engagement in IPCE and improvements in health care professionals' knowledge, attitudes, competence and performance, as well as patient and system outcomes. The accreditors believe that this evidence base is strong enough to justify including IPCE in regulatory requirements. In 2018, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) recognized IPCE credit as an additional means of satisfying CME requirements for medical license renewal. The increasing recognition of IPCE demonstrates the pivotal role of accreditors and regulators in driving the advancement of IPCE and team care now and in the future.