SHOW Complex Care; a New Nexus Model of IP Collaborative Community Practice Designed with a Local Hospital

Background: Interprofessional (IP) champions of SHOW designed a experiential-learning course (the second in a three course series) in collaboration with a local hospital’s emergency department (ED) to support student and client led interventions aimed at addressing social determinants of health (SDoH) with high utilizers. Student teams collaborate with clients to provide better care for complex health and social needs.1 As students build on IP team competencies, the teams meet with clients where “they are at” using tools/techniques to identify and address the client’s self-identification of SDoH and system barriers. Students, preceptors, and hospital stakeholder learning includes system barriers to care/health, the importance of coordinated care and patient-centered approaches, the value of interdisciplinary collaboration across academic and healthcare institutions, and how understanding the client's experiences and stories facilitate therapeutic relationships.2
Description/Method(s): Students (undergraduate and graduate) across multiple disciplines register in the fifteen-week Interprofessional Education and Complex Care course. Over the course of the semester, students complete five modules immersing them in the intersections between vulnerable populations, SDoH, and health and health care disparities. These modules, supporting IP practice skill competencies, provide students with applicable evidenced based practice interventions, as students follow the Camden Coalition’s Hotspotting Coach Manual3 and huddle with faculty practitioners four times over the course of the semester to get guidance and feedback on client interactions. Faculty meet weekly with hospital stakeholders to update and problem solve challenges.
Outcomes: To date,16 students have enrolled in the class. Student teams have received four referrals and have not had success in connecting with clients, requiring faculty to create supplemental case studies. The hospital and faculty continue to work to identify program inclusion criteria, currently discussing inclusion of at risk adolescents. The class meets both clinical and internship requirements and has been adopted on over 18 course maps across three colleges.