Interprofessional education in graduate medical education: survey study of residency program directors

BACKGROUND: The overarching purpose of this study is to examine the current trends in interprofessional education (IPE) within graduate medical education in the Unites States. METHODS: A survey was sent to program directors across with different specialties between March and April 2016. The survey was completed by 233 out of 1757 program directors, which represents a response rate of 13.3%. RESULTS: IPE is currently being used by over 60% of the GME program directors that completed the survey. The median number of IPE hours is 60. Classroom learning (70.8%) and team-based approaches (70.1%) to patient care are the two most common forms of IPE. The two most prevalent reasons for implementing IPE are improving collaboration (92.2%) and communication (87%). More than half of the program directors agreed or strongly agreed that lack of time both for teachers (54.4) and for residents (51.5%) are barriers to IPE. About one third of the respondents whose programs do not include IPE are interested in implementing some IPE in the future. CONCLUSION: IPE in its varying formats has been implemented as a training model by many residency programs. Further studies are needed to explore the comparative effectiveness of the different modalities of IPE. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-017-1104-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.