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Interprofessional education (IPE) is becoming an integral part of the education of health professions students. However, teaching students to become successful members of interprofessional teams is complex, and it is important for students to learn the combinations of skills necessary for teams to function effectively. There are many instruments available to measure many features related to IPE. However, these instruments are often too cumbersome to use in an observational situation since they tend to be lengthy and contain many abstract characteristics that are difficult to identify. The Jefferson Teamwork Observation Guide (JTOG) is a short tool that was created for students early in their educational program to observe teams in action with a set of guidelines to help them focus their observation on behaviors indicative of good teamwork. The JTOG was developed over a 2-year period based on student and clinician feedback and the input of experts in IPE. While initially developed as a purely educational tool for prelicensure students, it is becoming clear that it is an easy-to-use instrument that assesses the behavior of clinicians in practice. J Allied Health 2016; 45(1):49-53.
INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION(IPE) is becoming an integral part of the education of health professions students. It is now widely promoted as critical to an effective healthcare system.1-3 The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has stated that "all health professionals should be educated to deliver patient-centered care as members of an interdisciplinary team."4 Professional organizations are increasingly calling for IPE to be a part of their curriculum. Some, including nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and medicine, now include IPE in their accreditation standards in the U.S.5-9 Canada has mandated IPE for all health professions students since 2005.10 And, both the United States11 and Canada10 have published interprofessional competencies that all health professionals should possess.
In addition to requiring interprofessional approaches in many of their grant programs, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Health Professions, in 2012, funded a cooperative agreement for the creation of a coordinating center for IPE and collaborative practice (CC-IPECP).12 The goal of the CC-IPECP is to facilitate the transformation of the current healthcare delivery system into an integrated one, informed by IPE, to become the new national norm in the U.S.12 On an international level, the...