The Role of Interprofessional Collaborations in the Development of a Community Program to Increase Digital Literacy and Access to Healthcare in a Low Socioeconomic Community

Thirty students at The Ohio State University were asked to participate in the first-ever Interprofessional Community Scholars program and partner with the Partners Achieving Community Transformation (PACT) organization in Columbus’ Near East Side, the OSU Wexner Medical Center, and OSU Family and Community Medicine residents to work with Community Health Mentors to assess health needs, improve digital literacy, and enable access to important community care and services in a low socioeconomic area. The students were split into teams of five and paired with one community mentor, who is a leader and advocate for the Near East Side of Columbus, and one Family and Community Medicine Resident. The students were from the following professions: Medicine, Medical Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Pharmacy, and Social Work. These students and their community mentor met four times for four weeks. In these meetings, students provided services and information to improve the community mentor's own health literacy and equip her to provide outreach to her community as well. The team created materials to be used in four one-hour health education meetings pertaining to diabetes, hypertension, and obesity for the Near East community in July 2021. After this program, the team’s community mentor reported significant increases in her ability to teach health literacy to her community members, develop community programming, navigate healthcare resources, and develop and conduct a needs assessment. The program allowed for significant increases in knowledge and confidence among students in needs-based community programming, learning about other professions, and working in an interprofessional team to achieve a common goal of patient care, as measured by a Likert scale. Some key takeaways arose from the differing perspectives of the interprofessional team. The first was communication. Communicating in a respectful way to promote learning and growth proved to be vital to team success. Additionally, being open to learning more about each other’s professions proved crucial for understanding different perspectives in approaching client care. Identifying and achieving the same common goal of increasing the community mentor’s digital literacy and overall quality of life not only allowed the students to excel in an interprofessional setting but also equipped the team’s community mentor with the materials and resources to increase these outcomes in her community as well.