History

The idea of an Australasian Interprofessional Practice and Education Network (AIPPEN) was born in 2006 when a group of Australian and New Zealand educators and clinicians met at the international "All Together Better Health Conference III" in London.

AIPPEN Inaugural Steering Team
Left to Right: Monica Moran,
Jill Thistlethwaite, Denese Playford,
Janice Chesters and Karen Murphy

What became apparent was that, although the group came from a range of settings and had varying degrees of exposure and experience with interprofessional learning (IPL), they expressed similar challenges. These included gaining support for IPL initiatives both at a local and organisational level, sustaining existing IPL efforts, and evaluating the effectiveness of IPL programs.

Since this meeting, a small steering group began monthly teleconferences to explore how AIPPEN might evolve. These experiences allowed members to live the interprofessional reality of needing to seek and find shared meanings and tap into complementary strengths (well as forgiving allowable weaknesses).

Draft terms of reference and AIPPEN goals were then established and, along with a needs analysis questionnaire, distributed for feedback to a mailing list of interested members from Australia and New Zealand.

Respondents identified both long and short term priorities of AIPPEN and indicated their level of involvement and preference for contact. The terms of reference were finalised accordingly and the AIPPEN network was presented at the 'Interdisciplinary Learning from Interprofessional Practice' conference hosted by the University of South Australia in November 2006.

In 2008, collaboration between the University of Sydney (UniSyd) and the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), funding from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC, formerly known as the Carrick Institute), and partnership with the Learning and Teaching for Interprofessional Practice, Australia (L-TIPP Aus), enabled the development of an information sharing and communications platform for the network.

The AIPPEN website was launched in April 2009.