Getting underneath IPEC competencies: Core Competency 4: Teams and teamwork

Abstract

The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) formed in 2009 provided significant guidance to advance interprofessional collaboration in its publication of the IPEC competencies in 2011, which described Four Domains and associated competencies to address interprofessional education and practice. Its updated publication in 2016 included public health and the care of populations and clarified its intent that interprofessional collaboration is the overarching theme of the now renamed 4 Core Domains to 4 Core Competencies. The article examines the literature that correlates with the sub competency statements represented within Core Competency 4: Teams and Teamwork (TT) to identify the underpinnings that support their fulfillment. The TT core statement is broad: “Apply relationship-building values and the principles of team dynamics to perform effectively in different team roles…”. There is also considerable overlap between the sub-competency statements. Though the existing literature describes structural characteristics and behavioral elements of good functioning teams, the repertoire is not collectively accessible and assimilated into a whole, but is fragmented, embedded in multiple sources. The article integrates and assembles the qualities of teams and team-members likely to be successful while getting underneath the competency statements to identify the mechanisms and dispositions that drive those competencies. The exploration begins with the structural components of teams and then proceeds to key attributes of teams and team members. The article provides a nexus to correlate IPEC’s TT’s sub-competencies to yield favorable team functioning from which academic institutions, and health care professionals might enrich their knowledge about what works.