On November 13 and 14, 2018, members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education participated in a joint workshop with affiliates of the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. The workshop participants explored the intersection of health professions education and practice. Both sectors are working toward the same goal of improving the health of patients and populations, without compromising the mental stability and wellbeing of the workforce or its learners. However, while education and practice have the same goal, there is a need for greater alignment between the sectors to more fully realize these desired outcomes. For example, educators, practitioners, and administrators must learn to adapt and respond to the growing role of technology within a wider context, in order to most effectively apply higher education within health systems. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.

A pressing challenge in the modern health care system is the gap between education and clinical practice. Emerging technologies have the potential to bridge this gap by creating the kind of team-based learning environments and clinical approaches that are increasingly necessary in the modern health care system both in the United States and around the world. To explore these technologies and their potential for improving education and practice, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop in November 2017. Participants explored effective use of technologies as tools for bridging identified gaps within and between health professions education and practice in order to optimize learning, performance and access in high-, middle-, and low-income areas while ensuring the well-being of the formal and informal health workforce. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Today in the United States, the professional health workforce is not consistently prepared to provide high quality health care and assure patient safety, even as the nation spends more per capita on health care than any other country. The absence of a comprehensive and well-integrated system of continuing education (CE) in the health professions is an important contributing factor to knowledge and performance deficiencies at the individual and system levels. To be most effective, health professionals at every stage of their careers must continue learning about advances in research and treatment in their fields (and related fields) in order to obtain and maintain up-to-date knowledge and skills in caring for their patients. Many health professionals regularly undertake a variety of efforts to stay up to date, but on a larger scale, the nation's approach to CE for health professionals fails to support the professions in their efforts to achieve and maintain proficiency. Redesigning Continuing Education in the Health Professions illustrates a vision for a better system through a comprehensive approach of continuing professional development, and posits a framework upon which to develop a new, more effective system. The book also offers principles to guide the creation of a national continuing education institute.

Education in the health professions is placing greater emphasis on “active” learning–learning that requires applying knowledge to authentic problems; and that teaches students to engage in the kind of collaboration that is expected in today’s clinical practice. Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a strategy that accomplishes these goals. It transforms passive, lecture-based coursework into an environment that promotes more self-directed learning and teamwork, and makes the classroom come “alive.”This book is an introduction to TBL for health profession educators. It outlines the theory, structure, and process of TBL, explains how TBL promotes problem solving and critical thinking skills, aligns with the goals of science and health courses, improves knowledge retention and application, and develops students as professional practitioners. The book provides readers with models and guidance on everything they need to know about team formation and maintenance; peer feedback and evaluation processes, and facilitation; and includes a directory of tools and resources.The book includes chapters in which instructors describe how they apply TBL in their courses. The examples range across undergraduate science courses, basic and clinical sciences courses in medical, sports medicine and nursing education, residencies, and graduate nursing programs. The book concludes with a review and critique of the current scholarship on TBL in the health professions, and charts the needs for future research.

The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.

Due to the current paradigm shift from traditional teaching to a mixed model with the inclusion of e-learning strategies, reforms in clinical education models are necessary and must carefully consider the socio-professional changes needed to support such efforts. Further study of the implementation of clinical and virtual reality education simulators in education, the irreplaceable role of teaching in the design of advanced roles for health professionals, and the role of education in the continuing professional development are all necessary for the future of successful allied health professional education. The Handbook of Research on Improving Allied Health Professions Education: Advancing Clinical Training and Interdisciplinary Translational Research discusses a range of important topics related to medical and health professions education and clarifies purposes, processes, and future priorities in introducing changes in the educational system. Covering topics such as new technologies and patient safety, this major reference work is ideal for researchers, practitioners, academicians, industry professionals, instructors, and students.