Partnering to Transform Health Outcomes with Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PATH-PWIDD) Through Community-Academic Interprofessional Education and Practice
Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience health disparities and inadequate healthcare due partially to lack of knowledge about IDD among healthcare professionals. The Partnering to Transform Health Outcomes with Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PATH-PWIDD) Consortium, funded by the Administration for Community Living, is developing and integrating high-impact inclusive curricular materials and strategies into community-academic interprofessional partnerships to improve access to healthcare and the health outcomes of people with IDD.
The PATH-PWIDD Consortium is using the Collective Impact Model to guide our efforts. Key to the model are shared vision, open communication, building trust, and joint action plans with differential approaches. This model fits well in developing community-academic interprofessional partnerships and guides efforts to identify the needs and priorities of individuals with IDD, family, and communities. Innovative strategies will be implemented as the project’s major education strategy based on results of an environmental scan, systematic feedback from Consortium Action Networks members and other critical stakeholders that will be used to identify gaps between currently available educational materials and curricular resources and strategies needed to accomplish their goals and those of the PATH-PWIDD Consortium.
Project staff place emphasis on the priorities and preferences of the community. Simultaneously, innovative education/teaching strategies will focus on improving the healthcare experiences of people with IDD and the clinical experiences and subsequent competencies of healthcare providers. Evaluation strategies address Quadruple Aim outcomes in both healthcare and education (quality, populations, cost, and health/well-being of stakeholders).
As innovative materials and strategies are developed for the Interprofessional Education and Practice (IPEP) component of the project, the PATH-PWIDD consortium will address the following goals: 1) develop a repository/clearinghouse of existing resources to support the project’s objectives and current and future IDD IPEP programs; 2) implement the strategies at the 5 partner universities represented by the key members of the PATH-PWIDD team; 3) evaluate the outcomes of the initial innovative IPEP strategies at the 5 schools; 4) disseminate the materials to 30 additional IPEP-based programs; and, 5) evaluate the effectiveness of the use of IPEP-based curriculum at the additional 30 programs. IPEP principles and strategies will be key to successful development, implementation, and evaluation of the PATH-PWIDD efforts.
Through this presentation, participants will learn about current gaps in IPEP as they relate to supporting the health care needs of people with IDD and how the Collective Impact Model can be used to begin to address disparities in the healthcare system.
