The Utilization of Interprofessional Education in Nursing Education to Close the Communication Gap Among Healthcare Teams: An Integrative Review

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this integrative review is to explore relevant literature that identifies the significance of and current advancements in interprofessional education, in order to make needed recommendations for nursing education programs to intertwine IPE into undergraduate nursing curricula.

Background: Interprofessional education or IPE is when “two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other.” IPE first began in the late 1960s and early 1970s and has since become an increasingly important topic of research and nursing education.

Discussion: IPE has found to be beneficial in increasing undergraduate nursing students’ knowledge of other professions and increasing IPE skills such as collaboration and communication. Despite this, few articles within this integrative review demonstrated permanent implementation of IPE into undergraduate nursing curricula. The most common methods of IPE administration were found to be hands-on methods (such as through laboratory simulations) or mixed methods (through both hands-on and didactic learning). Although benefits were found for students when administering IPE, little evidence was found of how IPE translates into the health care workforce after its’ implementation in undergraduate nursing programs.

Conclusion: IPE is a necessary part of pre-licensure nursing curricula, as it has been proven to be beneficial. Educational institutions should attempt to implement IPE via hands-on methods to maximize potential IPE benefits. Further research is required to determine statistical benefits of IPE in the health care workforce after students have participated in IPE and graduated from their pre-licensure nursing program.