Experiencing interprofessional collaboration in the academic education of four health care professions

Interprofessional collaboration in health care is imperative to ensure a holistic understanding when treating patients. Through professional collaboration, patients benefit from high quality therapy services and the health care system profits from greater efficiency. Therefore, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, midwifery, and music therapy Bachelors’- and Master’ degree programs at the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems provide an interprofessional course. By simulating real world settings, the course aims to increase awareness of the
importance of interprofessional collaboration. In eight online teaching lessons multiple digital tools are used. Students from all four programs are mixed into interprofessional groups with approximately seven participants per group. Within several group discussions,
the students are guided by four lecturers representing each professional group to discuss, solve, and present case studies on therapy and rehabilitation from an interprofessional perspective. In April 2023, the course will involve a total number of 123 students. The course evaluations will be analysed qualitatively. For a better reflection of interprofessional collaboration in practice, it is recommended to adapt the teaching concept to integrate suggestions from the evaluations and to include more students of other health care professions in future courses.