Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC) are promoted on the premise that we can improve patient care through the introduction of structural and conceptual efficiencies in the healthcare system. IPE and IPC models are designed to bring together healthcare professionals from different professions to learn and practice collaboratively. The expectation is that IPE and IPC will contribute to better communication and coordination of services, and thus reduce medical errors and improve clinical problem solving. 

There is an increasing awareness that to successfully implement successfully collaborative practices in clinical settings, we must attend to numerous culturally, socially and economically entrenched practices that interfere with the sharing of expertise and complicate interprofessional communication. 

In this lecture, a summary of pertinent literature exploring power relations and their effects on team dynamics, with a specific focus on affordances for learning in clinical contexts will be presented. The lecture will also focus on the construct of team learning, as a form of workplace learning that helps clinical teams to develop competency in collaborative practice. 

Assoc Prof Martimianakis will be sharing her findings from her research programme and overview of a typology of team learning that has emerged from this work. This can be used to guide a programmatic approach to workplace transformation.