Definitions and Terminology

“When students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.” (WHO, 2010) *

When multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, caregivers,  and communities to deliver the highest quality of care. (WHO,2010) *

Someone who has learned how to work in an interprofessional team and is competent to do so. (WHO, 2010)*

The levels of cooperation, coordination, and collaboration characterizing the relationships between professions in delivering patient-centered care. (IPEC, 2016)**

Care delivered by intentionally create, usually relatively small work groups in health care who are recognized by others as well as by themselves as having a collective identity and shared responsibility for a patent or group of patients. (e.g. rapid response team, palliative care team, primary care team, and operating room team.) (IPEC, 2016)**

Integrated enactment of knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that define working together across the professions, with other health care workers, and with patients, along with families and communities, as appropriate to improve health outcomes in specific care contexts. (IPEC, 2016)**

* World Health Organization (WHO). 2010. Framework for action on interprofessional education & collaborative practice. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.

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** Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2016). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: 2016 update. Washington, DC: Interprofessional Education Collaborative.