Benefits and challenges of interprofessional collaboration in the development of a virtual learning environment.

摘要

Introduction The Faculty of Health and Social Care (HSC) at the University of the West of England introduced an interprofessional (IP) curriculum for its ten health professional programmes in the year 2000 (Barrett et al., 2003). This initiative prompted discussions as to whether there were other subjects, such as manual handling, which could be improved through an interprofessional approach. As manual handling is integral to all practice and universities have a legal, professional and academic responsibility to prepare students for clinical placements and qualified practice (Grisbrooke & Pearce, 1999), it seemed appropriate to investigate this idea. At the time, manual handling was designed and delivered to suit each individual programme and consequently there was duplication in academic preparation, and good practices and professional expertise were not being shared amongst the different programmes.