National initiatives

Browse the work and activity being conducted across New Zealand in the interprofessional education and collaborative practice field.

Auckland University of Technology

The Faculty of Health and Environmental Science at AUT is made up of four schools: The School of Clinical Sciences, Public Health and Interdisciplinary Studies, Sport and Recreation and Science. There are a number of undergraduate and postgraduate clinical and non-clinical health programmes including:

• Case Management
• Counselling
• Counselling Psychology
• Exercise science and nutrition
• Health Management
• Medical Laboratory Science
• Midwifery
• Nursing
• Occupational Therapy
• Oral Health
• Paramedicine
• Perioperative Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Podiatry
• Psychology
• Psychotherapy
• Public and Environmental Health

AUT's interprofessional education vision

To prepare future health professionals through effective authentic interprofessional education opportunities to be confident and competent members of interprofessional healthcare teams delivering optimal integrated patient care.

Interprofessional learning at AUT

AUT supports the premise that graduates require dispositional qualities (Flood, Hocking, Smythe & Jones, 2019) knowledge, skills and values that enable them to respond to and meet the demands inherent in the complex relational world of practice, where different conceptions and expectations of interprofessional practice, knowledge and performance exist across professional boundaries.

All BHSc students in the School of Clinical Sciences (with participation from selected programmes across the faculty), participate in interprofessional learning activities during their undergraduate degrees. There is a range of embedded short term and longitudinal interprofessional learning activities available, some compulsory, others selected, as determined by individual programmes. These are provided via the Interprofessional Learning Zone (IPLZ) and AUT Integrated Health centre and embedded across professional programmes.

AUT's Interprofessional Learning Zone (IPLZ)

The IPLZ is led by an interprofessional steering committee made up of student and staff representatives from across the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences. It provides a central hub for interprofessional learning and provides a platform (space) for students and staff to:

• Develop a view of ‘being’ interprofessional as integral to becoming a health professional.
• Work collaboratively alongside several different health professions
• Develop qualities and capabilities for client/whānau-centred interprofessional practice
• Develop active listening, problem solving and responsive communication
• Prepare for future collaborative healthcare practice.

The IPLZ opens new and existing learning opportunities (called interprofessional learning units) to a wide range of students, it prioritises interprofessional learning experiences likely to be transformational and it ensures that interprofessional process and outcomes add to student and staff experiences, all via a simple and streamlined platform. There are a number of interprofessional learning units operating and more in development.

Interprofessional learning units

Moving and handling

• The IPL unit: Moving and Handling is for students in the School of Clinical Sciences (nursing, midwifery, occupational therapy, oral health, paramedicine, podiatry and physiotherapy, perioperative practice) to learn current best practice moving and handling techniques within an interprofessional context, thereby providing students with an opportunity to learn with, from and about one another whilst engaging in a practical skill important across the healthcare professions.
• The IPL unit: M&H adopts the hui process as the central framework for the unit and is comprised of three modules.
• Theory underpinning the unit is accessed online in module one with students introduced to key areas which include the hui process, interprofessional practise, musculoskeletal risk factors, LITE risk assessment and biomechanics.
• Modules two and three are two-hour practical sessions which focus on sitting/chair and bed transfers, respectively.
• During the practical sessions, students from a number of professions are actively involved in practising moving and handling techniques collaboratively with each other; achieved through enacting interprofessional dispositional qualities that are foreground at the beginning and end of each session by an interprofessional education (IPE) facilitator.

AUT Integrated Health

AUT Integrated Health provides a collaborative approach to person and whānau-centered healthcare through excellence in practice, education and research. AUT Integrated Health provides opportunities for postgraduate and undergraduate students from across the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, to learn and apply knowledge, skills and values for clinical practice and meet clinical requirements through the provision of a range of health services to the public. The strengthening of students’ clinical skills, knowledge and qualities for collaborative, culturally responsive and integrated person/whānau-centred healthcare remains a primary focus. All of the health disciplines work together in the provision of person/whānau centred care that focuses on meeting the person’s identified needs. Those receiving services at AIH have the opportunity to see a range of healthcare students either individually, by way of combined/interprofessional care, and/or through participation in a number of interprofessional programmes that are offered.