Dictionary

This paper is focused on continuing professional development of clinicians in the United States. Therefore, the terminology and concepts discussed are specific to that context and culture.

Key concepts used are:

Interprofessional Learning (IPL) is a situation “when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care” (CAIPE, 2002).

Quality Improvement Education (QIE) is a system-wide educational framework focused on four goals: better care, better health, reduced-cost and better professional development (Batalden & Davidoff, 2007). Its holistic system design approach tackles all potential barriers for quality improvement (QI), attempting to make permanent system-wide changes through coordinated and continuous efforts of all stakeholders – healthcare professionals, patients, researchers, educators and the public.

QIE/IPL is a view on healthcare learning organization that perceives QIE and IPL as two integrated parts of the same system.

Quality improvement is the combined and continuous effort of all stakeholders to improve outcomes, system performance and professional development (Batalden & Davidoff, 2007 ); it is a change management approach that utilizes self-reflection, assessment of needs and gaps, and is focused on improvement in a multifaceted manner (The Health Foundation, 2012).

Learning is the process where individuals, teams, organizations or networks develop knowledge, skills and competencies to improve understandings, perspectives or practices (Nisbet, Lincoln, & Dunn, 2013, p. 469)

Medical home is a team-based healthcare delivery mode build around patient-centered, coordinated and integrated (networked) care.

Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) is a surgical care-focused version of medical home. It serves as a patient-centered, team-based, coordinated, practice model encompassing all elements of surgical care – from decision for surgery to complete recovery. It is delivered through interprofessional collaboration among all clinical and non-clinical staff, patients and their families.

Networked care is a health delivery model that builds on the team-based, patient-centered medical home concept, and extends it by encouraging use of digital collaborative tools to listen, inform, collaborate, learn and network (Gaugler & Kane, 2015).

Physician anesthesiologist is a physician who has completed an accredited residency program in anesthesiology after medical school training. It requires 12 years (4 undergraduate + 4 graduate + 4 residency) of education.

Nurse anesthetist is a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) who has acquired master-level education and board certification in anesthesia. Nurse anesthetist programs in the U.S. are moving to requiring doctorate degrees for new nurse anesthetists.

Continuing Medical Education (CME) is a uni-professional approach to continuing education of physicians, mainly built around content-focused didactic formatting.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) refers to professional development of all healthcare providers. It is a much broader term than CME. It covers all methods we can use to support professional development of individuals, team and systems. The CPD term is perceived as more complete and up-to-date than CME, but CME is still more widely used – especially for uni-professional education of physicians. Therefore, often those terms are used interchangeably or combined as CME/CPD. In this paper, both terms will be used.

References

• Batalden, P. B., & Davidoff, F. (2007). What is “quality improvement” and how can it transform healthcare? Quality and safety in health care, 16(1), 2-3.
• CAIPE, Centre For The Advancement Of Interprofessional Education. (2002). Interprofessional Education – The definition.   Retrieved from http://caipe.org.uk/resources/defining-ipe/
• Gaugler, J., & Kane, R. L. (2015). Family Caregiving in the New Normal: Elsevier Science.
• Nisbet, G., Lincoln, M., & Dunn, S. (2013). Informal interprofessional learning: an untapped opportunity for learning and change within the workplace. Journal of interprofessional care, 27(6), 469-475.
• The Health Foundation. (2012). Quality improvement training for healthcare professionals, Evidence scan. Retrieved from http://www.health.org.uk/: http://www.health.org.uk/sites/default/files/QualityImprovementTrainingForHealthcareProfessionals.pdf