Amy Clithero

Training for impact: the socio-economic impact of a fit for purpose health workforce on communities

Across the globe, a “fit for purpose” health professional workforce is needed to meet health needs and challenges while capitalizing on existing resources and strengths of communities. However, the socio-economic impact of educating and deploying a fit for purpose health workforce can be challenging to evaluate. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of six promising strategies and interventions that provide context-relevant health professional education within the health system. The strategies focused on in the paper are:1. Distributed community-engaged learning: Education occurs in or near underserved communities using a variety of educational modalities including distance learning. Communities served provide input into and actively participate in the education process.2. Curriculum aligned with health needs: The health and social needs of targeted communities guide education, research and service programmes.3. Fit for purpose workers: Education and career tracks are designed to meet the needs of the communities served. This includes cadres such as community health workers, accelerated medically trained clinicians and extended generalists.4. Gender and social empowerment: Ensuring a diverse workforce that includes women having equal opportunity in education and are supported in their delivery of health services.5. Interprofessional training: Teaching the knowledge, skills and attitudes for working in effective teams across professions.6. South-south and north-south partnerships: Sharing of best practices and resources within and between countries.In sum, the sharing of resources, the development of a diverse and interprofessional workforce, the advancement of primary care and a strong community focus all contribute to a world where transformational education improves community health and maximizes the social and economic return on investment.

Street outreach and shelter care elective for senior health professional students: an interprofessional educational model for addressing the needs of vulnerable populations.

Background: University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNMHSC), located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, has an international reputation for developing and implementing curricular initiatives addressing health inequities. The Street Outreach and Shelter Care elective is designed to provide interprofessional service learning opportunities for senior pharmacy and medical students addressing the needs of our nation′s most marginalized population-those experiencing homelessness. Methods: Our institution collaborated with multiple community partners serving the homeless to develop, implement and teach a 4-week senior elective for health professions students. During this elective, senior pharmacy and medical student teams provide individualized health care to men in local homeless shelter facilities. Students also participate in street outreach programs across a continuum of homeless populations. Weekly interprofessional education (IPE) faculty-facilitated sessions allow students to reflect on their experiences and learn from other discipline perspectives. Results: Student evaluations uniformly reflect the transformative nature of the rotation since its inception, April 2009. Our outcomes corroborated the findings of similar service learning models developed to sensitize health professions students to the complex challenges of homeless populations. Discussion: Academic centers can play a central role in health education reform by instituting curricula focusing on the primacy of population welfare and just distribution of resources. Senior year is an opportune time to reinforce social accountability among health professions before graduation. This elective is based on adult principles of learning and can serve as an international educational model for developing interprofessional curricular innovations addressing the healthcare needs of vulnerable populations.

Translating medical school social missions to student experiences

There is a growing focus on the social missions of medical schools as a way of expressing an institutional commitment to service, responsibility and accountability. However, there has been little exploration of how a social mission translates to student experiences.

Improving Community Health Using an Outcome-Oriented CQI Approach to Community-Engaged Health Professions Education

Health professionals providing health-care services must have the relevant competencies and clinical experiences needed to improve population health outcomes in different contexts. Current models of health profession education often fail to produce a fit-for-purpose workforce ready and willing to provide relevant, quality care to underserved communities. Evidence is emerging that community-engaged and socially accountable health workforce education, i.e., aligned with priority health needs, produces a workforce ready and willing to work in partnership with underserved regions. This model of education fosters greater affiliation between education and service delivery systems and requires institutions to measure graduate outcomes and institutional impact. The Training for Health Equity Network (THEnet), a partnership of socially accountable health workforce education institutions, has developed and tested a Social Accountability Framework for Health Workforce Education (the Framework) and toolkit to improve alignment of health workforce education with outcomes to assess how well education institutions meet the needs of the communities they serve. The Framework links education and service delivery creating a continuous quality improvement feedback loop to ensure that education addresses needs and maximizes impact on the quality of service delivery. The Framework also provides a unifying set of guidelines for health workforce policy and planning, accreditation, education, research, and service delivery. A key element to ensuring consistent high quality service delivery is an appropriately trained and equitably distributed workforce. An effective and comprehensive mechanism for evaluation is the method of CQI which links the design, implementation, accreditation, and evaluation of health workforce education with health service delivery and health outcomes measurement.

Addressing Interpersonal Violence as a Health Policy Question Using Interprofessional Community Educators

Introduction The health effects of intimate partner violence (IPV) not only include physical injury, but can also manifest as posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and others. US medical students report receiving inadequate training about IPV. This case-based tutorial for third-year medical students examines: (1) a clinical encounter with a patient experiencing several complex challenges including IPV and homelessness; (2) the implications of existing policy on the delivery of health care services; and (3) the impact of policies on patient choices. Methods This case is completed during a family medicine clerkship. The 2-hour case review moves between small- and large-group sessions led by community interprofessional experts at a local family advocacy center. Optimal group size is three to four students and one or two experts per group. The large-group session should be led by a dynamic moderator who is familiar with the Socratic method of teaching to elicit a variety of responses to ad hoc challenge questions. Materials provided include student resources, student case, facilitator guide, moderator guide, and sample brochure of IPV documentation policies. Results To date, over 200 students have participated in this session. During the most recent iteration the average response to the question, “As a result of the FAC experience, I feel more empowered to care for persons experiencing IPV,” was 4.1 out of 5 (5 = strongly agree). Discussion Public health, health policy, and clinical topics can be effectively taught by an interprofessional team of community experts and lead to improved student understanding of the importance of health policy to both individual and population health outcomes.