Novel Health Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice Program: Strategy and Implementation

This book describes a novel health interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP) program established at King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The book has three main sections. The first section introduces interprofessional education's background, theory, and context for collaborative practice. This section elaborates on defining and developing centers of excellence in IPECP, defining and exploring the meaning of interprofessional collaborative practice in contemporary health care, theories of the team working relevant to health and social care systems, and learning in and about interprofessional groups and broader collaboration. The second section explains how to formulate and implement strategies for effective IPECP. It involves developing and implementing a novel health IPECP curriculum, governance, IPECP's impact and implications on health care outcomes, IPE accreditation standards, regulatory policies, and legal structures. The third section describes the result of a case study of an IPECP program established at KSU. This program is developed by the vice-rectorship for health specialties at KSU (VRHS-KSU) in collaboration with partners harvard medical international (PHMI) to enhance health professional education further through interprofessional education and collaboration. For that purpose, a strategic plan is developed to develop learning, teaching, and assessment in all health sciences colleges (HSCs), along with a governance structure to establish a joint "center of excellence in interprofessional education and collaborative practice (CoE-IPECP)". The strategic plan and design of the program summarized in this book were accomplished through several meetings, workshops, and courses conducted at KSU in Riyadh, and harvard macy institute (HMI) in Boston, USA. The toolkit for successful program implementation includes a pro forma business plan, implementation groups' training, matching needs with feasibility, and expected impact on HSCs. Initiation of pilot projects started with implementing some interprofessional courses, establishing an initial physical and IT infrastructure of the center, developing the webpage, newsletter, and listservs, and improving faculty development programs to enhance IPECP at HSCs. Also, this book is a helpful road map for other national and international universities and institutes aiming to develop their professional health education, particularly interprofessional education and collaborative practice.