Today's healthcare sector is no place for the “lone wolf”. Ever more importance is being placed on collaboration and networking between individual groups of professionals in a healthcare scene typified by increasing complexity and a shortage of resources.

Building interprofessionalism into professional practice and training can help keep pace with this trend. It is all about collaboration between specialists from healthcare and medicine within teams that transcend individual professions – with a view to ensuring people are looked after and given optimal care. It also, however, covers collaboration with patients and their relatives. The idea is start a conversation – on equal terms – between all involved.

Careum wants to prepare future healthcare specialists for interprofessional collaboration. This is why people should learn with, from and about one another, right from their training days, in order to equip them for the challenges of healthcare.

Measures

Careum has been advocating interprofessionalism for many years through various measures. The Interprofessionalism Steering Group controls and coordinates the development of interprofessional learning options as part of the training on offer at the Careum Campus. The aim is for students to get to know other groups of professionals during joint learning units and practise collaboration:

• Interprofessional clinical training ward Zurich (ZIPAS)
  The first "interprofessional clinical training ward" in Switzerland based on the Scandinavian model is established at the University Hospital Zurich. Here, trainees and students can look after "real" patients under supervision during their training.
  
  Find out more about the interprofessional clinical training ward Zurich
   
• Joint learning modules for medical and nursing personnel
  In two interprofessional learning modules, medical and nursing students have an opportunity to train in and practise how to act and communicate together in emergency situations and how, as a team, to convey life-changing news to patients in a gentle and empathetic manner.
  
  Find out more about the learning modules for medicine and nursing
   
• Mobident – dental hygiene and dentistry on the move
  The Mobident mobile dental practice is somewhere students from dental hygiene and dentistry courses can treat residents in homes for the elderly.
  
  Find out more about Mobident
   
• Main Library – Medicine Careum
  The “Main Library – Medicine Careum” on the Careum Campus serves students and trainees from different healthcare and medical professions and is also somewhere people can meet.
  
  Find out more about “Main Library – Medicine Careum”

 

Events

Careum participates in conventions, workshops and conferences on the issues of interprofessionalism and healthcare education policy.

Find out more about events

Publications

Ulrich, G., Aeberhard, R., Feusi, E., Kaap-Fröhlich, S., Panfil E.-M. & Witt, C. (2019). Entwicklung einer interprofessionellen Ausbildungsstation am UniversitätsSpital Zürich. In M. Ewers, E. Paradis & D. Herinek (Hrsg.), Interprofessionelles Lernen, Lehren und Arbeiten (1. Aufl., S. 201-218). Weinheim Basel: Beltz Juventa. Verlag

Breckwoldt, J., Knecht, M., Massée, R., Flach, B., Hofmann-Huber, C., Kaap-Fröhlich, S., Witt, C., Aeberhard, R. & Sax, H. (2019). Operating room technician trainees teach medical students - an inter-professional peer teaching approach for infection prevention strategies in the operation room. Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, 8(1). doi: 10.1186/s13756-019-0526-2

Kaap-Fröhlich, S. (2018). Interprofessionelle Ausbildung für die Gesundheitsversorgung von morgen – eine Schweizer Perspektive. Public Health Forum, 26(1), 42-44.

Themenheft «Interprofessionelle Ausbildung» – herausgegeben von der Robert Bosch Stiftung und der Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung (2016). GMS Journal for Medical Education, Issue 2.

Sottas, B., Mentrup, C., & Meyer, P. C. (2016). Interprofessionelle Bildung und Praxis in Schweden. IJHP – International Journal of Health Professions, Volume 3, Issue1. PDF