Report: Pharmacists to increasingly learn alongside other health professionals

HAGUE, Netherlands — Learning together with other health professionals might become more mainstream for pharmacists, according to a report published Friday by the International Pharmaceutical Federation Education Initiative.



Interprofessional curriculums could become more common in classrooms and clinical settings, according to the report “Interprofessional education in a pharmacy context: Global report 2015.”



“As the number and complexity of treatments grow, it’s no longer possible for any one health provider — no matter how knowledgeable — to be able provide top quality care working in isolation,” said report co-author Tina Brock.



The report presented examples of multidisciplinary education from around the world, including the development of an interprofessional curriculum at the University of Queensland in Australia, and oncology nurses training in a hospital pharmacy department in Uruguay.



Interprofessional education may be an area of pharmacy where developing countries are active, using new models that others can replicate, according to the report. “In under-resourced countries, there is typically a shortage of health professionals. This provides additional motivation for professionals in emerging systems to combine forces,” Brock said.



“In the United States and many western systems, we’re now spending significant resource in retraining people who were educated separately to work together in high performing teams,” Brock continued. “If under-resourced countries never build those professional ‘silos’, they will not have to expend precious resource to tear them down.”  



Pharmacists and educators will gather next week to discuss interprofessional education at the World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Düsseldorf, Germany.



Click here to view the full International Pharmaceutical Federation Education Initiative report.