Reference no: EM131446016

The Chilean government took IPE to a whole new level after the collapse of one of its mines trapped 33 miners 2,400 feet below solid rock. The miners were trapped after 600,000 tons of rock collapsed in the 100-year-old mine in Copiapo, Chile. After 17 days of using a small drill to poke a hole into the caverns to see if the miners were alive of if they had perished, the miners were found alive.

The Chilean government did something that most governments would never think of doing. They crowd-sourced solutions and collaborated with multiple countries, industries, and teams in order to achieve their outcome. They threw off the cloak of bureaucracy, streamlined and flattened the leadership chain, and began an odyssey of interprofessional collaboration that was unmatched and never seen before in this type of problem and rescue. They invited NASA to participate and advise them because the space program is well versed at keeping people alive in enclosed spaces for prolonged periods of time, and also is known for their great engineering prowess. They invited the Chilean Navy, miners and drillers from every specialty, and a host of medical professions to help them problem solve the issues and complex problems related to feeding the miners, treating them for their ailments, drilling to rescue them, developing new drilling techniques, developing a rescue capsule, and inventing never-before-seen or -used procedures toward the successful rescue.

Until their rescue, no miners had ever survived a collapse of this magnitude, so deep below the Earth, for so long a period. The multidisciplinary teams would bounce ideas off each other, and the Chilean leadership would implement those ideas that they felt were the most promising. What was the result of their interprofessional collaboration? All 33 miners were rescued 69 days into their ordeal as the world watched.

The story of the Chilean miners is a great example of interprofessional education with which most of you are familiar since it was national and international news. IPE is about using every potential resource to bring about the best outcomes in any organization! For this discussion, share a factual event or story the involves interprofessional work. This may be a story or event outside the lines of healthcare such as the example given from the case studies in Chapter 9. Support your findings with reliable and valid sources.