Coordinating Center BLAST News Links                                                           December 06, 2012

West Haven Center of Excellence Primary Care Trainees in Press!

The words of West Haven CoE Resident Yogesh Khanal, MD were highlighted in the Washington Post Opinions Section on Sunday. Yogesh reflects on his experience in the VA Centers of Excellence Primary Care Education and praises the teaching within the Centers. The article purports his belief that the interdisciplinary team Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) strategies delivered through the VA Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) approach “relieves stress for doctors and patients.” Yogesh reported seeing firsthand strategies that likely prevent patients from returning to the system with serious medical problems. See VA System, The Future Of Primary Health Care. (Yoghesh completed his medical education at the University of Washington School of Medicine (including internal medicine clerkships and other rotations) at the Boise VA- the site of another Center or Excellence, Primary Care Education).

Ali Khan, MD, MPP and Theodore (Ted) Long, MD, Resident Directors with Rebecca Brienza, MD, MP Co-Director, VA Connecticut Center of Excellence in Primary Care Education, West Haven had more press this month in Letters to the Editor, Academic Medicine, December 2012 edition (available on OVIDSP). In the spirit of Academic Medicine’s (Editor in Chief, Steven L. Kanter, MD) Question of the Year and the series of responses that followed to the question: “What improvements in medical education will lead to better health for individuals and populations?”, the authors, (linking Porter and Teisberg’s 2006 “Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results”) asserted that “the academy must broaden the societal reach of academic medicine to prepare trainees for today’s health care system”. The letter goes on to discuss the value of the model at the West Haven CoE (as one of five such centers across the U.S.). Dr’s Khan, Long and Brienza offer potential solutions to this intriguing question through 4 central concepts: 1) interprofessional collaboration; 2) curricula that emphasizes this collaboration, 3) immersive longitudinal and meaningful clinical and didactic experiences, 4) modalities linking to improved clinical outcomes including shared decision making and performance improvement strategies and 5) “exemplary care and learning site”.

Institute of Medicine Global Forum on Innovation in Health Profession Education

The IOM Workshop was conducted November 29-30, 2012. This Global Forum evolved from the 2010 Future of Nursing Report and the Lancet Commission Report on Health Professionals for a New Century: Transforming Education to Strengthen Health Systems in an Interdependent World. The Workshop was the 2nd of at least 4 more workshops through 2014. The focus of this event was built around curricular innovations, pedagogic innovations, cultural elements, human resources for health and metrics. Workshop goals included participant enhanced understanding of principals and lessons of Interprofessional Education with opportunities to examine partnerships that model team based education and collaborative practice towards improving health outcomes. Attendees also had opportunities to learn about Interprofessional models that impact systems and population health.

This workshop was the second in a series of workshops through 2014. Day 2 of the event featured Office of Academic Affiliations representatives. Dr. Malcolm Cox is also a member of IOM's Global Forum on Innovation in Health Profession Education and served on the planning committee for the first two workshops on interprofessional education and practice. He additionally led discussion as moderator for a workshop session on addressing academia and practice strategies around placing students in high functioning interprofessional teams. Dr. Kathy Rugen served as a panelist on behalf of OAA and the Centers of Excellence, Primary Care Education exploring academic and practice partnerships in process of developing models of team-based education and collaborative practice.

On several occasions the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Triple Aim was referenced. The concept of Triple Aim includes: Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction); improving the health of populations; and reducing the per capita cost of care.

Presentations for the Workshops may be found here. The webcast covering the meeting in its entirety will be available on the site within the next couple of weeks.

Of Note -- The IHI recently released a White Paper "A Guide to Measuring Triple Aim”. The paper includes measurement suggestions for the three dimensions.

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