Tressa
Ellett,
MS
MD Candidate
Duke University School of Medicine
Tressa Ellett is a third-year medical student at Duke University School of Medicine in the Primary Care Leadership track, with academic interest in solving health inequity in primary care systems. She has been involved in the Duke Hotspotting Initiative (DHSI) since starting medical school and has served on the executive board during each of her subsequent years at Duke. She has enjoyed working with her colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to expand DHSI and promote healthcare advocacy for North Carolinians most in need.
Presenting at the Nexus Summit:
Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic drastically expanded reliance on virtual care in clinical practice, as it offers increased flexibility and expanded access to care, particularly for patients with complex medical needs who are disproportionately impacted by non-medical drivers of health. Hotspotting programs partner health professions students with patients identified as “high utilizers” of health care resources in order to address social barriers to health, improve access to primary care, and reduce patient emergency department overutilization. Telehealth offers a solution to common social…
The COVID-19 pandemic led health systems to increasingly rely on telehealth for patient care. Despite rapidly changing clinical and regulatory environments, most healthcare providers and students were not equipped with formal training in telehealth-specific skills. With support from the American Medical Association, we convened an interprofessional team of clinicians and student leaders from UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke to develop a virtual interprofessional telehealth curriculum. The curriculum consisted of five, 90-minute, online interactive course sessions, including an introduction to…