Interprofessional Education in Healthcare: Benefits, Challenges, and Impacts on Drug Management and Patient Care

Interprofessional education (IPE) is an integral component of healthcare training that encourages close working relationships among different healthcare professionals. Driven by its curriculum goal of integrating students from diverse fields like medicine, pharmacy, nursing and allied health to emphasize the development of key competencies for participation in teams and medication management, this approach brings students from all these fields together. IPE exposes students to common learning experiences which help students learn about their roles and responsibilities in patient care. Research indicates that collaborative learning environments not only serve to increase the knowledge that participants have of drug therapy but also aid in improving patient outcomes by decreasing medication errors as well as promoting patient-centric care. The IPE's impact on collaborative practice was discussed, with specific attention to the role played by medical education on medication management and patient outcomes.