In the area of nursing practice, teamwork was cited as a necessary and key element. Teamwork constitutes collaboration between healthcare disciplines and forms the basis of interprofessional education (IPE).
The essential areas of research related to teamwork, as established by the IOM, included, 1) “identification of main barriers to collaboration between nurses and other healthcare staff in a range of settings”, 2), “identification and testing of new or existing models of care teams that have the potential to add value to the healthcare system if widely implemented”, and 3) “identification and testing of education innovations that will have the potential to increase healthcare professionals’ ability to serve as productive, collaborative care team members” (IOM, 2011, p. 275). The IOM (2011, p. 274) also recognized that “the research priorities… constitute key evidence gaps that need to be filled to convince key stakeholders that each recommendation is fundamental to the transformation of care delivered by nurses.”
In the six years since the founding of the IOM’s (2011) report, no review has investigated the research done to fill the identified gaps and answer questions set forth by the IOM (2011). The purpose of this review was to summarize research related to IPE in the nursing profession and determine which key evidence gaps have been addressed since the monumental call for transformation in nursing practice. This integrative review was completed using the systematic approach of Whittemore and Knafl (2005).
Methods: In order for a study to be included in this integrative review, certain inclusion criteria had to be met. Studies had to include IPE with nurses or nursing students (either in academic or practice setting). Studies had to be original research (i.e. primary sources), published in English between January 2010 to August 2016. The year 2010 was chosen to include any empirical research conducted between the time the IOM concluded its search of the literature and the time the IOM (2011) report was published.
An academic librarian completed a literature search using a combination of medical subject headings, or MeSH terms, along with keywords to retrieve non-indexed citations. The following databases were searched: PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), ProQuest: Health and Medicine, Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR)-from Ovid, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) (EBSCOhost), Science Direct, and Scopus.
Results: The database search strategy yielded 209 citations. Abstracts were reviewed for inclusion criteria and the citations were narrowed down to 85 studies. Authors then read and reviewed each full-text manuscript for inclusion criteria and excluded citations that did not meet the criteria. On a second review, authors found seven studies did not address an essential area of research related to IPE. These studies were excluded, leaving 45 studies in this integrative review.
The 45 studies were coded according to which IOM (2011) research recommendation(s) the study addressed. The IOM was not prescriptive in how each research recommendation was to be addressed. There were no studies found in this review where the purpose was specific to research recommendation #1 (to identify “main barriers to collaboration between nurses and other healthcare staff in a range of settings” (IOM, 2011, p. 275)). However, 15 studies identified barrier(s) to collaboration in the study findings..
All studies included an interprofessional team (part of the search criteria). The composition of the teams varied. Various educational innovations were used in the 45 studies.
Conclusion: The nursing profession is making progress in achieving the IOM’s call for change in nursing practice. The three research recommendations set forth by the IOM have been investigated. More empirical evidence and further inquiry are needed in some areas to fully understand and advance the concept of IPE in the nursing profession.