Empowering Patients, Engaging Teams: An Interprofessional Continuing Education Pilot

Health care is moving from reactive, disease-focused systems to proactive, patient-centered systems focused on the health continuum. This shift requires ongoing education on the part of the health care team to ensure care competence and the ability to meet patients where their needs exist. To maximize outcomes, interprofessional continuing education is necessary to support interprofessional collaboration. One health system embraced this by piloting an interprofessional, continuing education population health course. The course encouraged team members to learn from, with, and about each other while gaining skills in patient engagement. Outcomes showed an increased knowledge and confidence in the ability to support patients, as well as a greater desire to work together as a team toward population health. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2016;47(9):421-426.