Advancing the Interprofessional Clinical Learning Environment: A Conversation With NCICLE, IPEC, and HPAC

Interprofessional collaborative practice is increasingly required to achieve outcomes that matter most to individuals, families, communities and the health of populations. Interprofessional education has been widely recognized as critical to prepare future health professionals for effective collaborative practice. Increasingly, interprofessional educators are working to expand partnerships with practice to expand opportunities for learners to engage in interprofessional collaborative practice before graduation. Multiple national organizations are developing tools to support ongoing development of interprofessional education focused on the interprofessional clinical learning environment.

Join us in a conversation with leaders from the National Collaborative on Improving the Clinical Learning Environment (NCICLE), Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) and the Health Professions Accreditation Collaborative (HPAC) as they share strategies for using tools each organization has developed to advance interprofessional education and the interprofessional clinical learning environment, with the goal of improving collaborative practice outcomes that matter most to people served.

The tools include:

• IPEC Institutional Assessment Instrument (in publication), IPEC
  With support from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the IPEC Institutional Assessment Instrument was developed by a panel of nationally recognized experts and scholars in interprofessional education (IPE). Intended to address the absence of evidence-based instruments available to assess institutional capacity for high-quality programmatic IPE -- defined as IPE that is integrated into curricula and spans its entire length, from early didactic IPE experiences to advanced clinical IPE experiences, which collectively result in meaningful outcomes -- the IPEC Institutional Assessment Instrument consists of 20 items distributed across three factors: Institutional Infrastructure, Institutional Commitment, and IPEC Competency Framework.
• Guidance on Developing Quality Interprofessional Education for the Health Professions (2019), released by the National Center and HPAC
  The guidance was developed through a multi-year, multi-phase consensus process aimed at supporting the development and implementation of quality interprofessional education (IPE). The goals of the guidance are to facilitate the preparation of health professional students for interprofessional collaborative practice through accreditor collaboration and to provide consensus guidance to enable institutions to develop, implement, and evaluate systematic IPE approaches and IPE plans.
• The Optimal Interprofessional Clinical Learning Environment: A Novel Approach for Development of a Needs Assessment Tool to Guide Organizations (in development), NCICLE
  NCICLE has undertaken a systematic process to create a needs assessment tool founded in interprofessional education and collaboration theory, which will focus on the ability for institutions/organizations to assess their current state of readiness and the structures and processes needed to achieve the optimal IP-CLE. Utilizing current validated assessment tools of IPE and teaming, collaborators cross walked the NCICLE domains for the optimal IP-CLE with core constructs from these validated tools. A thematic analysis was performed using triangulated data from three reviewers and was then utilized to create a Likert Scale needs assessment tool. The use of this readiness tool is formative and will provide a self-assessment for the organization. Further plans include piloting the needs assessment tool for further validation.
• NCICLE Pathways to Excellence: Expectations for an Optimal Interprofessional Clinical Learning Environment to Achieve Safe and High-Quality Patient Care (2021), NCICLE
  NCICLE Pathways to Excellence is a tool for promoting discussions and actions to optimize the interprofessional clinical learning environment (IP-CLE). The document is designed to assist the health professions as they engage in dialog with the executive leaders of CLEs to design infrastructure and processes that optimize learning and patient care across key areas of focus including: Patient Safety, Health Care Quality, Teaming, Supervision, Well-being, and Professionalism.