WIPAKO(®) Winterthur interprofessional training concept “communication and cooperation in health professions”: concept, development process and implementation

Objective: The positioning and training of communicative and social competencies to improve interprofessional cooperation is and will be a challenge for educational institutions. The aim of this project was to reorient the interprofessional training elements of bachelor programs in terms of both content and structure, to improve the legally required practical relevance and to aim for a sustainable anchoring through the targeted design of the development process. WIPAKO(®) facilitates the acquisition of communicative and social competencies as a prerequisite for cooperation between the health and medical professions. Methodology: Once suitable process structures had been created, an interprofessional committee of experts defined the training elements (competencies, content, learning and teaching methods, learning objective review and evaluation) in an iterative consensus process based on various framework models and on the involvement of the various stakeholders in the individual study programs. Results: A training concept focusing on communicative and social competencies for interprofessional cooperation is available. The consistent interprofessional development of the concept promoted joint responsibility for training in the sense of an organizational development process. Conclusion: The outlined procedure for the conceptualization and implementation of a corresponding framework model and the framework model itself provide the basis for the empirical examination of competence acquisition and the sustainable anchoring of interprofessional training elements. This will provide suggestions for other educational institutions facing similar challenges.