Opportunities and Challenges of Interprofessional Collaboration and Education

Interprofessional collaboration is essential in meeting today's health challenges, which demand high flexibility and innovation. Many health organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO) demand that interprofessional collaboration should be taught and learned globally. Even so, interprofessional education tools have not yet been widely implemented in the curricula of medical professions (incl. physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, etc.); this training usually takes place separately. Collaboration is necessary in health professions education as it can allow professionals to increase their skills and help them achieve more than they would at an individual level. Collaboration also allows for more open-minded approaches when facing new ways of thinking. When knowledge is shared, healthcare employees are more encouraged to share their own ideas and concerns. These achievements of interprofessionalism within health profession education not only benefit the student and employee, but also optimize patient care and increase patient safety. Productivity can also be increased and therefore, reduce costs overall.

The goal of this Research Topic is to showcase global research on interprofessional collaboration in health professions education. The data on interprofessional cooperation and training is largely characterized by qualitative studies, which show that health care workers and patients are more satisfied in an interprofessional environment. Carers, learners, and patients are also more satisfied in an interprofessional environment. However, quantitative data is rare. The data on cost efficiency, patient safety and employee motivation is ambivalent and unclear. This Research Topic aims to highlight new insights, current challenges, latest discoveries, recent advances, and future perspectives in the field of interprofessionalism in the health care sector. This Research Topic also aims to inspire, inform, and provide direction and guidance to health care providers to achieve optimal interprofessional collaboration.

We encourage researchers from different disciplines like medicine, pharmacy, sociology, economics, and educational science to submit articles on interprofessional collaboration and education, especially but not limited to the following fields:

- patient outcomes
- employee experience
- evaluation of educational concepts
- impact on health economy

This Research Topic welcomes all article types available in Frontiers in Medicine including Original Research, Reviews and Mini Reviews, Method and Perspective Articles as well as Hypothesis and Theory Articles.

Volume II of this collection can now be found here: Opportunities and Challenges of Interprofessional Collaboration and Education - Volume II