Tuesday, February 10, 2015

New Interprofessional Elective Courses for Institute Students

For years academic medical centers and health professions training programs have worked to develop interprofessional experiences for students with varying degrees of success. Typically these experiences have been orchestrated or based on simulated cases.  Often they are short (one day/ one event) encounters so the students are not able to gain a full appreciation of the team’s collective abilities.  Barriers to moving IP experiences off campus include curricular calendar conflicts (Well, it looks like there may be a week in June when several students can be in the same place at the same time.), space/slot limits at rotation sites (Wait, What? You want me to take 4 students at a time?!), preceptor requirements (Can you precept a medical student, a nursing student, and maybe an OT student?), and housing limitations (No, we cannot put all the students in our spare bedroom!)

Using resources provided by the IPC grant, the IPC Core Team developed a flexible, longitudinal experience for IP teams of Fellows. Starting this spring, a practice-based, patient-centered interprofessional care experience allows two to four students from at least two different disciplines to collaborate with a primary care clinical preceptor and practice to engage a panel of five or six high-risk patients. Students will identify barriers to access and appropriate utilization of clinical services, assess the influences of the social determinants of health for these patients, and identify patient-specific resources and educational materials that can positively influence health behaviors.  Student teams will review charts, interview patients and care givers, make home visits, and learn about the availability of community resources. After identifying barriers and identifying resources for each patient, the student team will make recommendations to improve patient outcomes. 

In addition, Fellows from the MUSC campus have the opportunity to participate in an elective at the Partners in Health clinic located in a community center in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. This clinic was established by a team of MUSC advanced practice nurses. They provide care to patients who are uninsured and are dealing with chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, or chronic lung disease. Teams of Institute students from different disciplines have the opportunity to work together with the advanced practice nurses for four consecutive Wednesday clinics to contribute to the care of the patients and to see how an interprofessional team can work to address the needs of patients who have difficulty accessing healthcare services.  

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