543 Bali Medical Journal 2022; 11(2): 543-546 | doi: 10.15562/bmj.v11i2.2846 ORIGINAL ARTICLE ABSTRACT Faculty members’ readiness for interprofessional education Ni Gusti Ayu Eka 1 , Marisa Junianti Manik 2 , Grace Solely Houghty 1* , Vivien Puspitasari 3 , Mona Marlina 3 , Neneng Suryadinata 3 Introduction: Healthcare is a complex system that requires collaboration across health professions. However, a plethora of reports has identifed poor communication and collaboration within healthcare teams which could lead to patient safety issues. Interprofessional education (IPE) is an educational strategy to promote communication and collaboration between healthcare professionals. Despite knowing the readiness among students, opinions among faculty members regarding the need for IPE at UPH (Universitas Pelita Harapan) have yet to be examined despite the important roles of both students and faculties in developing an IPE curriculum. This study aimed to investigate the readiness among medical and nursing faculty members in establishing an IPE curriculum at UPH. Methods: This study applied a quantitative study design using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) by Parsell and Bligh (1999) which was translated to Indonesian and tested for its validity and reliability. The translated RIPLS questionnaire was administered to a total of 60 participants which consisted of 30 nursing and 30 medical faculty members. Subsequently, both descriptive and Mann-Whitney statistical analyses were conducted. Results: Findings revealed a statistically signifcant diference between the IPE scores (RIPLS) of nursing faculties and medical faculties (U = 652, z = 3.028; p = 0.012, r = 0.390). This demonstrates that the nursing faculty members (Median 4.30) indicated a higher level of readiness or more positive attitude towards IPE compared to the medical faculty members (Median 4.07). Conclusions: This study highlights that faculty members have a positive attitude or readiness toward IPE, with nursing faculties indicating higher levels of readiness than their counterparts in the medical faculty. Further exploration using a qualitative method is also important to understand the faculty members’ readiness for IPE as well as the commitments of faculty members and leadership on delivering IPE. Keywords: Interprofessional education, Medical faculty, Nursing faculty. Cite This Article: Eka, N.G.A., Manik, M.J., Houghty, G.S., Puspitasari, V., Marlina, M., Suryadinata, N. 2022. Faculty members’ readiness for interprofessional education. Bali Medical Journal 11(2): 543-546. DOI: 10.15562/bmj.v11i2.2846 1 Department of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia; 2 Department of Nursing Profession, Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia; 3 Medical Education Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia; *Corresponding author: Grace Solely Houghty; Department of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia; grace.houghty@uph.edu Received: 2022-01-05 Accepted: 2022-05-26 Published: 2022-07-04 543 Bali Medical Journal (Bali MedJ) 2022, Volume 11, Number 2: 543-546 P-ISSN.2089-1180, E-ISSN: 2302-2914 Open access: www.balimedicaljournal.org INTRODUCTION Interprofessional education (IPE) is an educational strategy to enhance communication and collaboration between interdisciplinary health care professions. 1 IPE is applied by involving students from two or more healthcare professions in the same learning environment with the aim of improving interprofessional collaboration, health care quality, mutual respect, and understanding regarding others’ professional roles and responsibilities. However, the implementation of IPE in the Asian context has faced both advantages and challenges. 2-4 Some advantages are improved quality of care and health care professional collaboration. 3,4 Meanwhile, challenges include a lack of role models and the perception among faculty members that IPE is burdensome. 4 Both students and faculty members have important roles in developing an IPE curriculum, especially in health care education. A preliminary study in 2017 involving 50 medical and 50 nursing students at Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) Indonesia showed no signifcant diference between IPE readiness scores (p < 0.05) of medical students and nursing students. However, there was no report regarding faculty members’ opinions on the need for IPE at UPH. Faculty members have an important role in facilitating the efectiveness of an IPE learning environment, thus it is vital for faculty members to demonstrate good interprofessional teaching competencies including commitment, practice, and role modeling IPE as well as valuing the unique contribution of each health care profession. 4,5 On the other hand, some healthcare education programs still provide training in the traditional mono-professional system that neglects to emphasize the importance of interprofessional collaboration in healthcare settings. 6 For example, most medical education programs stress self- reliance in clinical practice. 4 In Southeast Asia, the culture of social hierarchy remains very strong and may afect the implementation of IPE. 7 Doctors in this region, including Indonesia, are perceived to occupy highly respected positions in society, which leads to the marginalization of other health care professions such as nursing. 8 Tis