New approaches to interprofessional education and collaborative practice: lessons from the organizational change literature.

This paper highlights a variety of issues from the organizational change literature that are especially relevant to the implementation of initiatives in interprofessional education (IPE) for collaborative practice (CP). At the level of the individual, these include the existence of strong professional cultures and the need to motivate change. At the level of the organization, context and leadership for IPE and CP are relevant. At the system level, a discussion of incremental versus radical forces for change is particularly germane. Drawing on relevant theoretical and empirical literature, we address each of these three domains and highlight lessons learned from the study of organizational change to the implementation and adoption of IPE and CP. The paper concludes with a set of key recommendations suggested for reducing the incidence of implementation failure.