Future-proofing Healthcare Teams: Mastering Digital Health Through Interprofessional Collaboration

Digital health technologies—such as artificial intelligence, wearable devices, electronic health records (EHRs), and telehealth—are transforming patient care, clinical workflows, and decision-making (PSNet, n.d.; WHO, 2023). However, many healthcare professionals face challenges adapting to these advancements due to insufficient training and digital health literacy (Abou and Alnajjar, 2024). Digital health literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, and use digital tools and data to enhance patient care, collaboration, and evidence-based decision-making (PSNet, n.d.).

Currently, preparing learners, which includes students, faculty, practitioners, etc, for digital healthcare is primarily guided by necessity or individual context, but an interprofessional approach is critical to ensuring all professions contribute to cohesive, patient-centered care (WHO, 2020). This collaboration fosters a comprehensive understanding of digital tools across disciplines, promoting seamless clinical integration (Longhini, Rossettini, and Palese, 2022).

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) provides a framework for advancing digital health literacy (Davis, 1989). It emphasizes perceived usefulness and ease of use as drivers of technology adoption. In interprofessional contexts, TAM can expand to address:

- Perceived Usefulness: How digital tools improve collaboration and outcomes.

- Perceived Ease of Use: Barriers and enablers in team learning.

- Facilitating Conditions: Institutional readiness for digital education.

- Behavioral Intentions: Strategies for applying digital literacy in care.

This session will equip IPE educators with foundational knowledge of digital tools and integration examples. Participants will draft plans to incorporate digital health, such as telehealth, wearables, and AI, into IPE while addressing ethical standards, faculty development, and maintaining patient-centered care.Session outline with active learning strategies: Participants will design actionable plans for interprofessional digital health education. Presenters will share examples of their own approaches. Participants will engage in small group brainstorming and discussion to draft a plan for advancing learners’ digital health competency, ultimately better equipping interprofessional learners for digital healthcare.