13 November 2023—The WHPA and its five member organizations recently came together at a multidisciplinary roundtable event “Oral Health within General Health”, where they advocated collectively for interprofessional collaboration and education.
The event, held on 8 November 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland, was organized by FDI World Dental Federation and brought together experts from seven major international health NGOs, the World Health Organization, and the five health professions represented by WHPA.
WHPA speakers consistently emphasized that collaboration between the professions needs to begin with more integrated curricula in professional education. They also supported the idea that it would benefit patients and professionals for oral health to be more integrated into every-day healthcare practices across the professions, and that digital solutions to share data between the professions, such as patient data sharing and mechanisms for referrals between professions, are needed.
The WHPA highlighted to participants its Statement on Interprofessional Collaboration, which provides guiding principles for effective ICP. The joint participation of WHPA members in the roundtable is in line with those principles and can itself be seen as the Alliance fulfilling its goal of promoting and practicing interprofessional collaboration through leadership and advocacy.
The second half of the day was devoted to exploring the impact of sugar consumption as a risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and how integrated approaches between healthcare stakeholders can better respond to it.
The WHPA member organizations were represented by:
- FIP: Gonçalo Sousa Pinto, Lead for Practice Development and Transformation
- ICN: Karine Lavoie, Senior Policy adviser, Nursing & Health Policy
- WMA: Jacques de Haller, Chair of the World Medical Association Associate Members
- World Physiotherapy: Birgit Müller-Winkler, Policy Manager
- FDI: Charanjit Jagait, Tolulope Osigbesan (Advocacy and Communications), and the Education and Public Health team who organized the event.
Read FDI's proceedings from the event and view the FDI video from the roundtable, featuring ICN and FIP representatives.