EDITORIAL

Interprofessional collaboration in research, education, and clinical practice:

working together for a better future
Bart N. Green, DC, MSEd and Claire D. Johnson, DC, MSEd

Interprofessional collaboration occurs when 2 or more professions work together to achieve common goals and is often
used as a means for solving a variety of problems and complex issues. The benefits of collaboration allow participants to
achieve together more than they can individually, serve larger groups of people, and grow on individual and
organizational levels. This editorial provides an overview of interprofessional collaboration in the areas of clinical practice,
education, and research; discusses barriers to collaboration; and suggests potential means to overcome them.
Key Indexing Terms: Collaboration; Relations, Interprofessional; Role, Professional; Trust

INTRODUCTION
Individual commitment to a group effortthat is what makes
a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization
work.
Vince Lombardi

Collaboration is a term commonly used in research,

clinical practice, and health professions education. There
are collaborations in almost every aspect of health, such as
patient advocacy and health care collaboratives, collaborative learning, interprofessional collaboration in practice
and in education, health care value collaborations,
business collaborations, collaborative efforts in research
and funding. With the increasing use of computers, mobile
devices, and social media, collaboration seems to be
present more than ever before. At its core, collaboration
occurs when 2 or more entities work together to produce a
desired and shared outcome. The elds of research,
education, and clinical practice are interrelated; research
informs education, which in turn inuences clinical
practice and patient care. In a complementary manner,
the needs of practitioners, patients, and educational
systems should inform what research may be needed. If
we wish to succeed in improving outcomes for students,
practitioners, patients, and populations, then we need to
consider working together in these environments through
collaborations. Therefore, the purpose of this editorial is to
discuss interprofessional collaboration in research, educa-

tion, and practice, particularly with regard to problems to

avoid and practices that help to achieve collaboration.
What Is Collaboration?
Collaboration may occur at virtually any level of an
organizational structure. People can collaborate within an
organization, between organizations, between one another,
between countries, and between professions.1,2 More
commonly referred to as interorganizational collaboration
in the business domain,2,3 the principles are similar in the
health professions and are often referred to as interprofessional collaboration (IPC). There are several key concepts
relevant to collaboration, including sharing, partnership,
interdependency, and power.4 Mattessich and Monsey5(p7)
nicely summarize the essence of collaboration:


Collaboration is a mutually benecial and well-dened

relationship entered into by 2 or more organizations to
achieve common goals.

The relationship includes a commitment to a denition of

mutual relationships and goals, a jointly developed
structure and shared responsibility, mutual authority and
accountability for success, and sharing of resources and
rewards.

Creating successful collaborations is no mean task, and

naysayers may scoff at the idea. However, there are several
exemplars of successful large and international collaborations in research, education, and practice to show that it
can be done. A sampling is presented in Table 1.

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Table 1 - Exemplars of Interprofessional Collaboration

Name
The Cochrane
Collaboration

U.S. Preventive Services

Task Force

The Bone and Joint

Decade

National Clinical Guideline

Centre

Canadian Interprofessional
Health Collaborative
(CIHC)

Best Evidence Medical

Education Collaboration

Purpose
Cochrane is a global independent network of health
practitioners, researchers, patient advocates and others,
responding to the challenge of making the vast amounts of
evidence generated through research useful for informing
decisions about health.
. . . the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is an independent,
volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and
evidence-based medicine. The Task Force works to improve
the health of all Americans by making evidence-based
recommendations about clinical preventive services such as
screenings, counseling services, and preventive medications.
The Bone and Joint Decade is a network of more than a
thousand national and international patient, professional,
scientific organisations with National Action Networks in
over 60 countries. Together this network is driving the
agenda of the Bone and Joint Decade to position
musculoskeletal conditions as a public health issue.
The National Clinical Guideline Centre (NCGC) is a
multidisciplinary health services research team funded by the
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). We
produce evidence based clinical practice guidelines on behalf
of NICE.
To foster better patient care, CIHC members across Canada are
working together to strengthen the interprofessional
education for collaborative, patient-centred practice (IECPCP)
knowledge base. Our goal is to share this knowledge with
those who make policy, planners in the health and education
systems, health professionals and educators to ensure all
Canadians benefit.
. . . an international group of individuals, universities and
professional organisations committed to the development of
evidence informed education in the medical and health
professions . . .

Benefits of Collaboration
Collaborating usually provides a means for organizations, institutions, or professions to achieve more than they
can on their own. Business has used collaboration for many
years to share costs, spread risk, and reduce supply chain
uncertainty while forming strategic economic alliances that
also serve as fertile grounds for innovation and learning.2,6
Collaboration potentially reduces self-sufciency in environments demanding great exibility and innovation.7
Several benets of collaboration are listed in Figure 1.
In health care it is generally believed that collaborative
efforts yield better health services and outcomes for the
populations that are served.4 Littlechild and Smith9 state
that collaboration leads to improved efciency, improved
skills mix, greater levels of responsiveness, more holistic
services, innovation and creativity, and a more usercentered practice. The World Health Organization (WHO)
has linked IPC with better outcomes in family health,
infectious disease, humanitarian efforts, responses to
epidemics, and noncommunicable diseases.10 Further
studies have shown improvements in access to care and
coordination of services, appropriate use of specialty care,
2

Topic

URL

Evidence

www.cochrane.org

Public
Health

www.uspreventive
servicestask
force.org

Clinical
Practice

www.boneandjoint
burden.org

Guidelines www.ncgc.ac.uk

Education

www.cihc.ca

Education

www.
bemecollaboration.
org

chronic disease outcomes, and safety.10,11 Important

indicators of safety, patient care, and environment of care,
such as complications and error rates, length of hospital
stay, conict among caregivers, staff turnover, and
mortality rates, have all been shown to decrease in
collaborative care environments.10
Interprofessional Collaboration in Research
Science and knowledge are foundational for a health
care profession to exist, and research is one means of
achieving these requirements. The problems that must be
solved in the modern era are complex, and solutions may
not be available if one is working alone. The National
Academies suggest that interprofessional or interdisciplinary collaboration may offer solutions when trying to solve
multifaceted issues.12 Interprofessional/interdisciplinary
research collaboration occurs when researchers from more
than 1 profession/discipline are working together to
achieve the common goal of producing new scientic
knowledge.13
The National Academies denes research collaboration
as follows12:

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Figure 1 - Benefits of collaboration.

Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is a mode of research by teams

or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques,
tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more
disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance
fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose
solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or field of
research practice.

Collaborating parties benet not only in accomplishing

research studies, but also in other, less tangible areas. IPC
among researchers can help build informational networks,
encourage different ways of thinking, and stimulate new
solutions to old problems.
Each professions research community faces various
obstacles, such as limited workforce, resources, and
expertise. For researchers who work in the isolation of
their own profession, there are limitations and risks for
not collaborating. On the profession or discipline level,
working in a research silo can create a false sense of
security because ideas are not likely to be challenged. This
can result in a small sh who thinks to be a big sh simply
because he is in a small pond. When working in seclusion,
work will likely go only so far and will not reach as wide
an audience as might be possible as when working with
others. As well, there is the possibility that a solution may
have already been found elsewhere; thus, isolated
research efforts may waste limited resources. Research
done in segregation likely can benet from better

infrastructure. Finally, without collaboration, some

research may result in poor-quality studies.
Collaboration can be a signicant catalyst to positive
advancement in research, as it allows access to resources so
that more complex, and perhaps more meaningful,
investigation may be possible. Research that may not
have been possible if done by a single profession may be
possible when done in collaboration with others. 14
Resnick15 states that while multidisciplinary research
brings disciplines together, interdisciplinary research cuts
across the disciplines and fosters the integration of ideas.
It has been suggested that there is a correlation between
collaborative research and prestige,16 increased success of
publication,8 and citability (ie, impact).17,18 As stated by
Frenken et al19 Research collaboration enhances the
quality of research, which leads papers with more authors
to be cited more often. Results of research may have a
better chance of being implemented if there are multiple
professions to disseminate the ndings. This is especially
important if the results have direct application to clinical
practice.
Breaking past professional barriers to achieve research
collaboration can be challenging. A profession that has
few resources and little access to funding may not be
invited, or even considered, to participate in larger studies
or projects. Some health professions do not have many (or
any) experts in particular areas within their profession to
perform certain areas of research, especially those in
emerging elds. It is also difcult to initiate a collaborative
effort when one has few resources to bring to the
relationship. Those with few resources are often the
professions and disciplines that especially need to collaborate in order to improve and may nd that larger
organizations are receptive to including them, especially if
it helps build more collaborative infrastructure.
Trust is an important factor for collaboration in
research. The culture of science has traditionally been
secretive. Scientists must compete for funding; sharing
novel ideas may risk that a fundable project is stolen,
either intentionally or unintentionally. Therefore, trust and
respect of others in a collaboration are necessary to
prevent withholding of ideas and assistance. There may
also be a funding advantage to participating in collaborative research. There has been a movement by major
funding agencies to reward and value multidisciplinary
collaborations.20 So, if helping humanity is not a big
enough motivator for collaboration, then better funding
may be a motivating stimulus.
Value continues once the research is done. After a
collaborative study is complete, the communications
among researchers often will continue. Skills and ways of
thinking that were shared among group members across
the disciplines can have long-lasting effects. The traditional
approaches of 1 discipline are expanded by working with
other professions; thus, the problem or the approach will
have been seen in a new light. As Lee et al14 suggest,
There is a general consensus that interdisciplinary
collaboration is important in solving large scale, complex
biomedical questions. If we wish to tackle the big
problems that we are facing, then we need to consider

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seeking out and developing better and more interprofessional and interdisciplinary relationships in research.
Interprofessional Collaboration in Practice
We have trained, hired and rewarded people to be
cowboys, but its pit crews that we need.
Atul Gawande, MD, MPH

Interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) has

emerged in health care over several decades,21,22 but has
garnered more support, particularly in the past 15 years, as
a means to address medical error.21,23 Also, the advent of
patient-centered medical homes21 and family home teams24
and a global shortage of primary care providers in areas
with major health disparities10 have made IPCP an
attractive model to, it is hoped, provide better care to
populations of health care users.
IPCP has been dened by WHO10 as follows:
Collaborative practice in health-care occurs when multiple
health workers from different professional backgrounds
provide comprehensive services by working with patients, their
families, careers and communities to deliver the highest quality
of care across settings.

IPCP involves more than different health care providers

applying their unique skills and knowledge to the
management of a patient. Collaboration occurs when
individuals have mutual respect for one another and one
anothers professions and are willing participants in a
cooperative atmosphere.25 It has been suggested that IPCP
is different from interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and
transdisciplinary practice, all terms used within the recent
past to denote care provided by more than 1 health care
provider for the benet of a patient.2628 While these
practices are indeed noteworthy for their contributions to
health care, the unit of study is a single patient and the
model is focused on the health care provider(s), whereas
the unit of study in IPCP is often a community of patients
and the model is focused on improving health outcomes.
Thus, when we look at IPCP, we must think of the bigger
picture and health in populations.
Traditionally, an individual patient has sought care for a
disease or disorder from a reputable health care provider.29
Under such a model, it was conceived that this singular
health care provider working in the silo of his or her own
ofce could meet the needs of the patient. Today, with
chronic and complex diseases requiring multiple specialty
providers30 and the role of primary care increasingly
shifting toward the provision of services to populations
of people with massive disparities, there is a great need for
team-based community care more reminiscent of public
health practice than health care. From a social perspective,
practices that focus on the skill set and charisma of a
singular health care provider are inefcient and costly. As
has been noted in the Institute of Medicines30 landmark
report The Future of the Publics Health, smaller practices
4

have great difculty in organizing the array of services and

support needed to efciently manage chronic disease.
In many countries, health care systems are fragmented
and unable to meet the health care needs of the
population.10 A chief force driving the use of IPC is the
shortage of primary care providers that is occurring
globally. This is a critical barrier to achieving the healthrelated Millennium Development Goals.10 Part of the
United Nations Millennium Development Declaration,
several of these 8 international goals have health-related
indicators, such as reducing child mortality rates, improving maternal health, and decreasing common and endemic
infectious diseases.31 Gostin and colleagues32 poignantly
state, Siloed models centered on temporary xes are not
sufcient to greatly alleviate the overall burden of disease
in developing countries.
Researchers at WHO have found that health care
workers who are team players are the ones who succeed in
austere situations dealing with extremely complex issues.10
IPC relies upon the ready integration of people with
diverse talents, including those not often associated with
health care, who may assist in the improved health care
outcomes of the group being served. In a collaborative
environment, the input of economists, logisticians, informatics specialists, technology experts, and others may be
critical to success. This perspective is something common
in public health but foreign to most patient care
environments.23 Collaboration at this level requires
participants to work together with open minds and to
value what each team member brings to the team. Such
collaboration is evident in a proposed interprofessional
oath suggested by Brown and colleagues33: We will work
with others to provide care, recognizing the unique skills of
each, and we will seek to collaborate effectively on the
healthcare team. This environment is perhaps best
summarized by Hall, 34 when she says, The milieu for
collaborative practice must foster a status-equal basis
between the various team members.
Interprofessional Collaboration in Education
Interprofessional education (IPE) occurs when students from 2 or more professions learn about, from, and
with each other.10 It has been suggested that to be a
genuinely interprofessional education experience such
interaction requires purposeful integration and collaboration among the disciplines, whether in an educational or
practice environment.23
IPCP and IPE are related. Advocates state that IPE
must be a part of the professional training of health care
workers in order to reach the goal of IPCP. In its widely
acclaimed and often-cited publication, Framework for
Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative
Practice,10 WHO clearly outlines the necessary elements
and relationships inherent to IPE and IPCP. As shown in
Figure 2, the health and education systems exist in a local
context and are there to provide the health care needs of
the local population. Within this environment, future
health care workers ought to be trained to work together
as members of a collaborative, practice-ready workforce10 (ie, IPE) that provides collaborative health care to

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Figure 2 - The model of relating interprofessional education and collaborative practice as presented by the World Health
Organization. Figure reproduced with permission from World Health Organization, Framework for Action on Interprofessional
Education and Collaborative Practice; 2010: 9, figure 1.

the population. A workforce that is ready for IPC

therefore emerges from IPE training experiences. The goal
of the IPC health care system is to deliver better health
outcomes to the population.10
Receiving formal IPE training has benets. While some
people without training in collaborative practice might be
able to gure out how to function or thrive in IPCP, it has
been shown that training people using IPE leads to
members who show respect and positive attitudes towards
each other and work towards improving patient outcomes.25 While health care systems have moved toward
IPC, teamwork training in health professions education has
not kept pace with such changes.21 IPE and IPCP are linked
to what society needs; through IPE, the workforce is trained
to work better as a team to deliver better health outcomes to
the community being served.
Collaborative work in IPE and IPCP has been done
across geographic and political boundaries. Much of the
work that has been published related to IPE and IPCP
originates from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United
States, and Australia.35 However, attention has been
garnered for IPE from around the world since WHO made
it an essential component of health professions education.10
In an international survey of WHOs 193 member states,
Rodger and colleagues36 found evidence of IPE in 41
different countries, with varying levels of complexity noted
in collaborative efforts. This makes sense given the shortage
of primary care services occurring globally. Opportunities
for involvement in various IPCP and IPE groups are widely

distributed, including those in Canada (www.cihc.ca),

Europe (www.eipen.eu), the United Kingdom (http://caipe.
org.uk), United States (www.aihc-us.org), Australia and
New Zealand (www.aippen.net), Japan (www.jaipe.jp and
http://jipwen.dept.showa.gunma-u.ac.jp), Scandinavia
(www.nipnet.org), and Eastern and African countries
(www.ecipen.org). Furthermore, annual international conferences focus on IPCP and IPE, such as the All Together
Better Health conferences that are supported by 8 different
organizations with international representation (www.atbh.
org). There are also the Collaborating Across Borders
conferences, a joint IPCP/IPE effort between Canada and
the United States (http://www.aihc-us.org/collaboratingacross-borders) and the New Zealand Interprofessional
Health Conference (http://www.nziphc.co.nz).
Potential Barriers to Collaboration
The secret is to gang up on the problem, rather than each
other.
Thomas Stallkamp

Given the core elements of collaboration (participants

from different cultures, high level of interaction, mutual
authority, sharing of resources), it has its potential
problems. What may start out as a well-meaning endeavor
can lead to conict.3 In fact, due to the very nature of a

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collaborative environment, conict should be expected;

but with this comes the opportunity for better understanding. IPC is essentially a melting pot of professions,
and each profession has its own unique history, culture,
attitudes, values, customs, and beliefs. How professionals
in collaborations come to understand and appreciate these
nuances can pose several challenges.34 For example, 1
profession may see another profession as an outsider or
rival and not want to involve this profession in collaboration. There also may be professional groups that are
afraid to interact with other professional groups for
various reasons, not the least of which could be historical
isolation or low status within the social hierarchy. There
are also situations in which a culturally dominant
profession may have attitudes that are prejudiced against
other professions, as has been stated by Gaboury and
colleagues37: It is plausible that practitioners who belong
to occupational groups that have obtained, or are in the
process of obtaining, legitimacy through licensing, certication, or registration may be seen differently by their
biomedical peers. The aforementioned are all relatively
minor obstacles compared to that of bringing together
professions that historically have been at odds with one
another. In summary, the ideological differences and
power relations brought to collaboration from different
professions can be potentially problematic.4,38
Boundary disputes, status issues, language barriers,
customer service orientations, and reporting structures are
all potential challenges.9,3941 Other authors warn of
problems with IPC in areas where the physical space is
not adequate or appropriate in design,42 where role
overlap and confusion exist,4,38 and where there is
territorialism.42,43 The conclusion is that collaboration44
will lead to conict. However, the management of any
conict to arrive at a benet for the customer is a necessary
step in building an effective collaboration.44,45 It is
recommended that collaborative groups have an agreedupon method for resolving conict, starting with resolution at the level of individual participants and working out
toward the larger levels of organization.44
There are also concerns that IPC can lead to the loss of
uniqueness of a profession or professional identity.23
When participants focus on the team goals and the people
that they are serving, then differences between professions
can be seen as unique opportunities to bring a valuable and
different point of view or skill set to the collaboration.23
The collaboration may result in overlap, to some degree, of
the activities of any 1 profession involved in it, but the
collaboration should not duplicate the efforts of any
particular profession.5 As stated by DAmour and
colleagues,4 working together in this way requires implementing a logic of collaboration rather than a logic of
competition.
Getting to Collaboration
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes
care of itself.
Henry Ford

Like other things that are valued but difcult to attain,

such as exalted leadership, ne wine, or an enduring
marriage, working collaborations are perhaps as much an
art as they are a science. Experts suggest that the process of
building a culture of collaboration is not exactly methodical, is somewhat organic, and requires a great deal of
practice and nurturing.2,46,47 It is suggested to start small
and rst learn to work collaboratively at a local level.
Examples might be collaborating within an ofce, department, or group. Once skills in collaboration are developed
(not tolerance or just working in the same building, but
actually accomplishing a task together), then reaching out
to larger circles of inuence and other professions may be
easier.
Many books and articles have been written on the topic
of collaboration, and several are cited in this article; thus,
we refer the reader to these sources for comprehensive
discussions about attaining quality collaborations. However, there are some cogent points relevant to forging
collaborations across disciplines that are expressed by
several experts, and we briey review them here and
provide a checklist for assessing readiness for collaboration in Appendix A.
1. Know when to use collaboration and when not to.
Effective leaders can identify when it is the right time to
collaborate. Essentially, collaboration is a tool to
employ to achieve a desired outcome and it will not
be a good tool to use in all situations. Collaboration
tends to work best in diverse groups where the people
participating in the collaboration have authority to
make nal decisions and when innovation and creativity
are desired.45 As stated by Hansen,1(p15) The goal of
collaboration is not collaboration, but better results.
2. Know what the collaborating professions or organizations stand to gain from the alliance and what the costs
are to get there.1,48 One expert has suggested that
collaboration should only be engaged if the net value of
the partnership is more than the sum of the return on
the venture, minus the costs and the opportunity costs,
such as manpower and time spent on the collaboration
that could be spent in other endeavors.1 In short, some
effort needs to be expended in advance of the
collaboration to determine if the value/benets outweigh the costs.48
3. Be aware of the factors that drive the strength of
collaboration: alignment of mission/values,47,48 personal connections,48 value generation for each collaborating organization or profession, 48 and improved
outcomes.10
4. Become familiar with the factors that lead to successful
collaborations.5 Such factors include attitudes, environmental concerns, communication, resources and
trust.2,7,46
5. Recognize the intangible elements, such as tacit
knowledge, social capital, ownership, disclosure, transparency, motivation, and commitment, that strongly
inuence peoples decisions.46,49

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6. Identify barriers to the collaboration that you desire to

build, and nd ways to remove the barriers so that
collaborative relationships can evolve.1
7. Create organizational learning objectives and goals to
facilitate knowledge creation.7,50 Performance goals
may stie knowledge generation when they do more
to encourage people to win than to learn.45 If the
organization has clear ideas about what it wants to
learn from the collaboration, then it is easier to identify
when new knowledge is generated by or obtained from
the collaboration. Identify the new learning processes,
outcomes, and innovations that occur during collaboration as assets and build upon these successes.6,7
Inkpen7 suggests that collaborations should consider
both incremental and large gains in knowledge as
successes.
8. Commit to collaboration for the long haul because it is
a long-term process and investment.46,47 Since collaboration is experiential and based upon relationships, it
takes time to develop. If an organizations culture and
leadership are not invested and committed to establishing formal relationships, then collaboration is not a
good t.7,23,25 A long-term commitment, both in
principle and in resources, is a necessary element of
success.
9. Know when it is time to stop a collaboration.7
Collaborations are a means to an end, and if the end
is reached, it may be time to stop the collaboration or
change it to meet a new goal. While ceasing a
collaboration can be disappointing for some, it may
be prohibitive to continue a collaboration for which the
net value of the collaboration is a liability.1
A recent expert report from the Josiah Macy Jr
Foundation identied 3 important recommendations for
establishing interprofessional partnerships, all of which are
long-term investments for any institution51:
1. Make changes in the content and conduct of health
professions education necessary to graduate practitioners who partner with patients, families, and communities.
2. Make changes in health professions education organizations and health care organizations necessary to
facilitate durable partnerships, both new and existing,
with patients, families, and communities.
3. Build the capacity for partnerships among patients,
families, and communities and health professions
education and health care organizations.
Suggested Resources
For anyone interested in setting up collaborations in
research, education, or clinical practice, seek out existing
publications, training centers, and experts who have
established collaborations. For example, those interested
in research collaboration can seek out funding bodies that
require collaboration, become participants in established
collaborations (eg, the Cochrane Collaboration or Best
Evidence Medical Education Collaboration), or seek new

opportunities by identifying gaps in the literature that need

interprofessional solutions. Another approach is to inventory current research at ones institution and consider if
any of the projects or goals would benet from team
research efforts.
For educators, there are many excellent resources for
getting started in IPE, including the WHO framework,
which includes suggestions for actions, participants, and
outcomes.10 Those interested in pursuing IPE should
consider this document required reading, as it serves as a
primer for this topic. The WHO framework also makes the
case for placing the community as the unit of concern
because of global shortages in health care providers and
health workers.
In clinical practice, numerous health professions are
currently working on developing policies and educational
competencies related to IPC, including physical therapy,52
nursing, medicine, dentistry, public health, and pharmacy.21 One excellent resource on IPE and IPCP is a
competencies monograph by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) that has application across
health professions.21 In the United States, IPEC is the
collaborative that has done the most work in IPE. The
chiropractic profession has joined the complementary and
alternative health disciplines in developing competencies
for interprofessional practice through the Academic
Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health
Care (ACCAHC). This consortium worked independently
to develop IPE competencies and then reviewed the IPEC
document,21 which was released simultaneously; it eventually became a supporting organization of IPEC.
ACCAHC also created 3 additional elements for IPE, as
they relate to the professions represented by ACCAHC.
These elements include a value for personal behaviors and
self-care practices that reect optimal health and wellness,
a section on evidence-based care, and a section on
institutional health care culture and practice.53
Canada has been a world leader in IPC for more than
15 years, with government interest and funding of research
and educational programs focused on more integrated,
team-based approaches to meet the health care and service
delivery needs of the Canadian population.23 A wealth of
information and wisdom is available from the Canadian
Interprofessional Health Collaborative. Like IPEC, this
collaborative has developed competencies for IPE. However, in their document, A National Interprofessional
Competency Framework, competencies are unique in the
sense that they integrate knowledge, skills, and attitudes to
arrive at judgments over 6 competency domains considered
to be critical to IPCP.54
Faculty development in IPE is critical to the success of
IPE programs.23,39 Institutions must be willing to invest
the resources necessary to develop faculties into communities of collaborators who can model the desired traits
and behaviors to students. Faculty members who are
legendary for their inability to work well with others are
not likely to be good ambassadors for IPC, nor are they
likely to appreciate training in the topic. Bridging the gap
for these faculty members may be difcult, but 1 successful
method is to engage them in team-oriented trainings that

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show obvious improvements in patient outcomes or

safety.55 Faculty development programs should be developed using the same educational principles required to
teach students: team-based learning, active learning,
problem solving, utilization of available resources, and
feedback mechanisms.55 Buring and colleagues56 have
published an excellent article on faculty training, including
desired attributes of IPE educators, faculty development
resources, and a rubric containing selected topics mapped
to Institute of Medicine competencies, teaching methods,
and learning objectives. Mackenzie and colleagues57 also
offer an informative account of the key elements of success
of their IPE program by linking successful organizational
structure and actions with the Canadian Interprofessional
Health Collaborative competency domains.57

Sciences and a doctoral candidate in public health at Walden

University (200 E. Roosevelt Rd, Lombard, IL 60148;
[email protected]). Address correspondence to Bart
Green, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Branch Health
Clinic, San Diego, CA 92145-2002; [email protected].
mil. This article was received and accepted December 9,
2014.

Author Contributions
Concept development: BNG, CDJ. Design: BNG. Supervision: BNG. Literature search: BNG, CDJ. Writing: BNG,
CDJ. Critical review: BNG, CDJ.
2015 Association of Chiropractic Colleges

CONCLUSION
When discussing collaboration, the key issues include
putting the community or client rst, the organization
second, oneself last, and prejudices aside. Shortages in
primary care providers and the challenges of managing
chronic, complex diseases, such as musculoskeletal
problems, are excellent opportunities for the health
professions to bring unique skills to collaborative
environments. Times are changing, silos are falling,
national health burdens are being shared, and it is going
to take much more than a single practitioner or paradigm
to solve the serious health care issues confronting
humanity today and in the future. Through collaboration, we can work together for a better future.

FUNDING AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

BNG and CDJ receive a stipend for services provided to
the Journal of Chiropractic Education and Association of
Chiropractic Colleges Research Agenda Conference (ACCRAC) meeting, respectively. However, this work was
performed independent of these relationships, and the
authors have no conicts of interest to declare relevant to
this work. The views expressed in this article are those of
the authors and do not reect the ofcial policy or position
of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or
the United States Government.

About the Authors

Bart Green is with the Department of Physical and
Occupational Therapy, Chiropractic Services, and Sports
Medicine at the Naval Medical Center San Diego; serves as
the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chiropractic Education; is
the associate editor in the Publications Department of
National University of Health Sciences; and is a doctoral
candidate in public health at Walden University (Marine
Corps Air Station Miramar Branch Health Clinic, San
Diego, CA 92145-2002; [email protected]). Claire
Johnson is a professor at the National University of Health

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Appendix A - A Checklist to Assess for an Organizations Readiness for Collaboration

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