A review of the requirements for interprofessional education and interprofessional collaboration in accreditation and practice standards for health professionals in Australia

ABSTRACT

In Australia, a national approach to accreditation of programs and regulation of health professions was adopted a decade ago. Accreditation standards and regulatory frameworks can drive change and provide support for interprofessional education and collaborative practice. There is a commonly held belief among Australian academics involved in health professional education, that accreditation and practice standards provide system-level support for interprofessional education and interprofessional collaborative practice. Using a purpose-designed analysis framework and scoring scheme, we analyzed standards of accreditation and practice for 29 regulated, self-regulated and member health professions in Australia to determine the extent and accountability of statements related to interprofessional education and interprofessional collaborative practice. Currently, in Australia, there is a fragmented and inconsistent approach to interprofessional education and interprofessional collaboration evident in accreditation and practice standards and, in general, there are more explicit requirements in standards of the regulated health professions. However, overall the concepts of interprofessional education and interprofessional practice are ill-defined and statements lack accountability and/or outcome measures. Our analysis provides a foundation for reform of Australian standards and an approach for analysis of accreditation and practice standards which may be useful in other jurisdictions.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional education
• interprofessional collaboration
• interprofessional collaborative practice
• accreditation standards
• regulation
• practice standards

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr Areum Hyun, The University of Queensland for undertaking preliminary Leximancer analysis of the source documents.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Data availability

There is no data set associated with this paper.

Data deposition

All source documents used in the analysis are publicly available.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fiona Bogossian

Fiona Bogossian is Professor of Practice Education in Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) and Academic Lead for USC at the Sunshine Coast Heath Institute.

Dana Craven

Dana Craven is a Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics in the School of Health and Sports Science at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC).