The viability of interprofessional entrustable professional activities.

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Medical Training
• Collaborative Healthcare

Background:

• Interprofessional education (IPE) focuses on collective learning among health professionals for optimal care.
• Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) focus on individual trainee competence for unsupervised practice.
• The relationship between IPE and EPAs, particularly interprofessional EPAs, is a subject of recent debate.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the reconciliation of IPE and EPAs.
• To determine the viability and structure of interprofessional EPAs or team-EPAs.
• To assess the role of interprofessional collaboration competence in EPA entrustment decisions.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of IPE and EPA principles.
• Examination of the interprofessional nature of various clinical tasks and EPAs.
• Argumentative synthesis of existing literature and practice.

Main Results:

• Most modern healthcare work inherently involves interprofessional collaboration.
• Some EPAs, like emergency teamwork and multidisciplinary meetings, are strongly interprofessional.
• Neither "interprofessional team-EPAs" nor "IP-EPAs for individuals" are considered viable standalone concepts.

Conclusions:

• Directly certifying teams or creating separate "IP-EPAs" is not viable.
• Assessing interprofessional collaboration competence is essential for most EPAs.
• Integrating interprofessional competence assessment into EPA entrustment strengthens clinical workplace collaboration.