Christine Jerpbak

The health mentors program: three years experience with longitudinal, patient-centered interprofessional education.

Abstract Increased emphasis on team care has accelerated interprofessional education (IPE) of health professionals. The health mentors program (HMP) is a required, longitudinal, interprofessional curriculum for all matriculating students from medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, pharmacy, and couple and family therapy. Volunteer lay health mentors serve as educators. Student teams complete four modules over 2 years. A mixed-methods approach has been employed since program inception, evaluating 2911 students enrolled in HMP from 2007 to 2013. Program impact on 577 students enrolled from 2009–2011 is reported. Two interprofessional scales were employed to measure attitudes toward IPE and attitudes toward interprofessional practice. Focus groups and reflection papers provide qualitative data. Students enter professional training with very positive attitudes toward IPE, which are maintained over 2 years. Students demonstrated significantly improved attitudes toward team care, which were not different across programs. Qualitative data suggested limited tolerance for logistic challenges posed by IPE, but strongly support that students achieved the major program goals of understanding the roles of colleagues and understanding the perspective of patients. Ongoing longitudinal evaluation will further elucidate the impact on future practice and patient outcomes.

Transforming chronic illness care education: A longitudinal interprofessional mentorship curriculum

Despite the growing burden of chronic disease globally, a number of reports have documented the failure of our health care systems to provide quality care for patients with chronic illness. Interprofessional education (IPE) is widely advocated as a key element to promote effective, redesigned health care and is increasingly recommended to develop skills in team-based, patient-centered chronic illness care. A growing body of literature now documents successful strategies for incorporating IPE in health professions education. However, as recently as 2008, a comprehensive review identified only six studies documenting IPE’s impact on patient-centered outcomes (Cameron et al., 2009). In a review of the literature, Reeves et al. (2010) found that ‘‘further rigorous mixed method studies of IPE are needed to provide a greater clarity of IPE and its effects on professional practice and patient/client care.’’ (p. 230) Recognizing the need to train students in team-based care, an interprofessional team of faculty at our university developed a longitudinal patient-centered team-based curriculum that builds on senior mentor programs and uses the Chronic Care Model (Bodenheimer, Wagner & Grumbach, 2002) as the conceptual framework. Senior mentor programs were initially designed to deliver geriatric education to medical students and to promote patient-centered care (Eleazer, Wieland, Roberts, Richeson & Thornhill, 2006). Using patients as educators is gaining recognition as a strategy to deliver patient-centered education (Towle et al., 2010). The Chronic Care Model is a new model of health care delivery redesign that promotes collaboration between an informed, activated patient and prepared, proactive health care teams (Bodenheimer et al., 2002). Applying theChronic CareModel to our curriculum, the Health Mentor represents the informed patient/teacher and the students are developing practice teams. The purpose of this study was to perform qualitative analysis of student reflection essays to assess the impact of a longitudinal mentor with a chronic condition on the training of future health care teams.

STFM DEVELOPS PRECEPTOR GUIDELINES AND A POSITION STATEMENT ON STUDENT USE OF ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS

The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine has created 2 documents to help preceptors and other educators when working with students using electronic health records (EHRs). The guidelines will help preceptors work effectively with students when using EHRs. The position statement will assist preceptors and other educators when engaging compliance officers or organizations in discussions about the need for medical students to work meaningfully with electronic medical records.