Indiana University: The Indiana University Student Outreach Clinic Nexus Project
Leaders have identified a need to enhance knowledge about roles, scope of practice, and training of professions at the clinic. Leaders are concerned that lack of knowledge is reducing interprofessional collaboration and contributing to inappropriate, over-, or under-utilization of services.
The main objective of this project is to improve quality of care, increase interprofessional collaboration, and increase efficiency in utilization of resources by: 1) increasing knowledge about roles, scope of practice, and training of the professions at the clinic and 2) assembling an interprofessional team to screen patients on admission to the clinic and make recommendations for collaboration across professions.
University of Colorado: Pediatric Preventive Care
This intervention project takes place in Sheridan Health Services’ School Based Health Center. There are two patient cohorts for testing the impact interprofessional care teams. One cohort contains 80 pediatric patients with asthma, and the other contains 85 pediatric patients with a body mass index (BMI) at or above the 85th percentile. The care teams aim to increase the number of patients with controlled asthma and decrease the number of patients with high BMIs. They also plan to increase patients’ knowledge of healthy habits and access to preventive health care.
University of Colorado: Chronic Pain Management
This intervention project centers on interprofessional care to support approximately 80 adults with chronic pain. Many of the individuals in this patient cohort have not experienced regular preventive care, and so increasing access to preventive care is part of the intervention. Education about the health risks of opioids is also part of the project, and it is delivered via shared medical visits and a six-week course. Pre-intervention data about preventive care use were collected through the health system’s 2014 quality care indicators. Additionally, emergent nurse leaders will develop and demonstrate skills in interprofessional team building, collaborative problem solving, shared decision making models, and care coordination.
University of Colorado: Adult Diabetes Management
This intervention project centers on care of approximately 120 diabetic adults via an interprofessional care team. Most of the individuals in this patient cohort have experienced uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes. Self-management education and a group visit model are components of the intervention. The care team also incorporates shared decision making models that include the patient in decisions. Better preventive care and enhanced self-management are intended outcomes, and pre-intervention data were collected through the health system’s 2014 quality care indicators.
Arizona Nexus: Interprofessional Education Community of Practice: Connecting IPE Training to Collaborative Practice in Community Health Settings
With the goal of improving health care outcomes, this intervention supports collaborative practice in community-based primary care clinics that serve underserved populations. In Phase 1 of the project, an interdisciplinary group of preceptors will complete the IPE Faculty Development: Train-the Trainer CoP program, and develop lesson plans. In Phase 2, these preceptors will supervise students who are part of interprofessional teams at El Rio Community Health Center and HealthPoint Community. In Phase 3, the effects of these collaborative practice efforts will be assessed. The intervention thereby creates a nexus between ATSU-SOMA and the community clinics.
Arizona Nexus: Community Health Mentor Program (CHMP)
The “Community Health Mentor Program” (CHMP) reflects the alignment of health professions education where the students learn from their assigned community health mentor who has a chronic disease and/or disability about their experience as a patient within the healthcare system and their community, as well as their role within an interprofessional team. The students meet with their assigned mentor eight times over the course of the one year. This project collectively forms a ‘nexus’ partnership between two state academic institutions, interprofessional student teams, and a defined population of residential community-based consumers of healthcare.
East Tennessee State University: Foundational Interprofessional Education as Preparation for Collaborative Practice
This project is a classroom-based study of a foundational-level IPE curricula which aims to prepare students for advanced training in collaborative clinical practice models. The curriculum teaches team-care skills that have been shown to improve the Triple Aim . It utilizes the Preceptors in the Nexus Toolkit as well as TeamSTEPPS resources. Students participate over four semesters.
South Dakota Nexus: Interprofessional Teach Back Approach to Patient Care
The purpose of this project is to determine if an interprofessional team of clinicians and students, working together using a standard teach back method, may improve the quality of the patient’s discharge transition, have a positive effect on Sanford team and student collaboration, improve the patient experience of care, and decrease cost while preventing 30-day readmissions.
South Dakota Nexus: Promoting Quality Conversations about Advance Care Planning in South Dakota through Interprofessional Teams
In order to meet South Dakota’s need for a unified approach towards Advance Care Planning (ACP), the University of South Dakota’s (USD) Department of Nursing assembled an interprofessional, collaborative network of health professionals to pilot an ACP process. The ultimate goal is to implement a process statewide. The project starts by training learners in USD’s School of Health Science as “First Steps Facilitators,” based on the model pioneered by the Gunderson Respecting Choices® program. Following initial implementation of the training in Sioux Falls, ACP Facilitator training will be integrated into USD’s Health Sciences’ curriculum at USD campuses throughout the state. Trained facilitators will implement the approach to ACP at a number of intervention sites in Vermillion, South Dakota. The community was chosen because it has a hospital, a senior center, and a nursing home that already partner with USD as part of the health sciences curriculum. If the intervention has positive results, it will be scaled up to a state-wide level. A pre-post design will be used to assess the impact of the unified approach to ACP on the state.
University of Rochester: Preparing Family Nurse Practitioners and Physicians for Interprofessional Collaborative Care with IPEC Core Competencies
This project focuses on developing IPE competencies among nurse practitioners in a one-year residency program and family medicine residents in a three-year residency program. The intervention places the NP residents in weekly interprofessional education sessions with family medicine residents and on interprofessional collaborative care teams at Highland Family Medicine. The NP residents will have both NP and MD faculty preceptors, who will provide feedback on interoprofessional skills development and teamwork.