Why IPL?
IPL occurs when two or more professions learn about, from and with each other in order to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes. Engaging in IPL during your studies is an evident strategy at KI, and students at KI participate in interprofessional learning activities together with students from other study programmes.
Within health and medical care, you work in teams with different professions to achieve safe and qualitative care. It is therefore important to have knowledge and skills in communication and cooperation, as well as knowledge of the competence and responsibilities of different professions.
The best possible conditions for working within, leading and continuously developing activities is in collaboration with other professions.
Need for interprofessional skills will increase
The medical research, health and healthcare organisations of the future are becoming increasingly specialised, complex and integrated with other activities in municipalities, society and the business sector. The need for interprofessional skills will thus increase.
In addition, there is an increasing need for competence in working preventively, cost-effectively, with patient safety as a priority and with a global health perspective.
Based on the individual’s needs and a culture permeated by the principles of people’s equal value and an enriching diversity, higher patient safety and more effective care, rehabilitation, prevention and health, and healthcare research can be achieved through interprofessional collaboration.
KI’s educational programmes will provide the best possible conditions for working within, leading and continuously developing activities in collaboration with other professions.
Different interprofessional learning environments
Clinical interprofessional training wards, interprofessional training units at emergency departments and so-called student training units are examples of interprofessional learning environments where students of different professions learn from, about and with each other.
Other activities within clinical placements are also arenas for IPL when students from different professions have their placements during the same period and at the same unit.
Clinical interprofessional training ward (KUA)
At KUA, students from different professions have the opportunity to train their cooperation skills in order to learn with, from and about each other’s areas of expertise. The education elements at KUA are based on treatment, care and rehabilitation.
Students studying to become occupational therapists, physicians, physiotherapists and nurses carry out the training together over a continuous two-week period.
KUA wards
- KUA Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge
- KUA Danderyd Hospital
- KUA Karolinska University Hospital Solna
- KUA Södersjukhuset
Interprofessional training unit at an emergency department (KUM)
KUM are interprofessional training units established at the emergency departments of hospitals.
Students studying to become physicians, physiotherapists and nurses carry out interprofessional training activities together in teams over a period of two weeks. The students meet with patients with various orthopaedic/medical/surgical disorders.
KUM departments
- KUM Karolinska University Hospital Solna
- KUM Danderyd Hospital
Clinical Training Centre (KTC)
A KTC is a specially equipped department that offers simulation in clinical and communicative skills for students and staff within the field of health and medical care.
- KTC-SÖS (Södersjukhuset)
- KTC-DS (Danderyd Hospital)
- KTC Karolinska University Hospital Solna and Huddinge
- KTC Capio S:t Görans Hospital
IPL organisation
In order to coordinate and develop the interprofessional work within KI’s first and second-cycle programmes, the Committee for Higher Education has appointed two coordinators for interprofessional learning (IPL).
Furthermore, the IPL work is carried out in close collaboration with programme committees and departments responsible for the educational programmes, the Unit for Teaching and Learning and various groupings within Region Stockholm.
Collaboration
The regional ALF agreement signed by KI and SLL in 2015 states that the teaching in the clinical placements must include interprofessional elements for enabling qualitative targets and preparing the students for work in complex environments that require cooperation and collaboration between staff with different competencies.
Creating, developing and maintaining high-quality IPL is a priority area for KI. It is a distinct collaboration assignment on several levels, ranging from management level to cooperation between individual teachers within different programmes.