Nexus Innovation Network

Member Since: February 2016

Intervention: Implementing a Clinical Interprofessional Curriculum Based on Patient Centered Medical Home Standards and Integrating IPEC Competencies in a Primary Care Setting

Partners:

• University of New England’s Center of Excellence in Health Innovation, in collaboration with UNE partners of: College of Dental Medicine, College of Osteopathic Medicine, College of Pharmacy, campus-based faculty-led Interprofessional Education Collaborative, and Westbrook College of Health Professions

• Eastern Maine Medical Center and Penobscot Community Health Care

Occupations represented: Students and professionals from osteopathic medicine, physician assistants, and pharmacy, along with dental medicine, social work, and public health.

Overview: In order to implement IPE in the clinical practice setting, this intervention incorporates UNE’s Clinical Interprofessional Curriculum (CIPC), which can be found at: http://www.une.edu/clinical-interprofessional-curriculum. CIPC is based on the NCQA patient-centered medical home (PCMH) recognition standards, such as those involving a comprehensive visit and assessment with a complex patient, as well as quality improvement and population health standards. The learning activities also infuse the IPEC competencies and reinforce the use of TeamSTEPPS skills. While helping students to achieve interprofessional competencies, the CIPC is also meant to assist the practice in achieving the PCMH standards. UNE students are also provided robust on-campus IPE during their pre-clinical training years, including: interprofessional seminars; joint curricula between, for instance, dental medicine and osteopathic medicine; interprofessional simulations; and interprofessional service learning.  

The University of New England confers 13 health degrees including osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, dental medicine, nursing, physician assistant, social work, dental hygiene, nurse anesthesia, occupational therapy, physical therapy, public health, applied exercise science, and athletic training. UNE has a 15-year history of developing and implementing campus-based IPE. UNE is entering its 5th year of developing and implementing clinical IPE with some of its clinical partners, and is expanding from medicine and pharmacy students conducting comprehensive patient visits to including students from other professions as well as other learning activities such as those focused on quality improvement and population health.

Eastern Main Medical Center (EMMC) is one of 12 UNE clinical campuses hosting osteopathic medical students for their third year clinical core rotations. This includes a 6-week family practice rotation in the Family Medicine Center. University of New England (UNE) students from pharmacy and other professions train there as well. As UNE’s largest clinical affiliate and a participant in several UNE IPE trainings, EMMC’s Medical Education Department launched an interprofessional home visiting program, with medical and pharmacy students visiting complex patients who are recently discharged from the hospital. They are expanding interprofessional patient encounters to other venues.

Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) is Maine’s largest Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and only teaching health center, with 16 clinical sites that stretch across the breadth of the state from Jackman (in the northwest near the Canadian border) to Belfast (Downeast). UNE medical students based at EMMC doing a 4-week community health rotation at PCHC as well as UNE pharmacy, physician assistant, and dental medicine students (and we hope to add social work) participate in IPE at PCHC, implementing the CIPC.

Outcome measures include teamness assessments and Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) scores, as well as specific patient outcomes associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, obesity, asthma and COPD, and potentially chronic pain. An interprofessional facilitation tool may also be used.

Intervention Study Question:

• What is the impact of interprofessional team-based curricula on student learning, clinical practice, patient outcomes, and cost?