Framing IPE. Exploring meanings of interprofessional education within an academic health professions institution

This paper reports a qualitative study that explored the meanings of interprofessional education (IPE) by comparing and contrasting educational leaders? perceptions with educational policy documents at an academic health professions education institution in Scandinavia. The study used Goffman?s frame analysis to identify two frames of IPE by illuminating issues related to the definition, rationale, and presentation of IPE. A directed content analysis to identify these three aspects of IPE was conducted on semi-structured interviews with nine educational leaders who were overseeing the development of IPE, as well as on the institution?s regulatory IPE documentation. Differences regarding definition, rationale, and presentation of IPE between the institutional regulatory IPE frame and the IPE frame of the educational leaders were found which implied difficulties for the educational leaders regarding the implementation of IPE. Based on the study?s findings, the paper argues that creating awareness of the differences in meanings of IPE between different perspectives within an academic education institution is an important factor to consider when creating future organisational structures and faculty development programmes in connection to IPE.