Effectiveness of a Social Determinants of Health-oriented Interprofessional Education Program, “Adapting Public Health Problem Solving Paradigm in Interprofessional Team Training (PHIT)”

Interprofessional (IP) and multidisciplinary collaborations are critical for providing comprehensive, safe, and effective care for patients, especially those with chronic illnesses, highlighting the importance of interprofessional education (IPE) for health professions students. The increased awareness of how social determinants of health (SDOH) can affect a patient’s health led to the creation of a virtual IPE program that aimed to introduce the public health problem solving paradigm (Guyer 1998) to health professions students and facilitate its usage in patient-centered care. The program guided students through the process of patient information review, root-cause analysis, and intervention development. This abstract describes the program and the early outcomes. The program was piloted in Fall 2022 and offered in each semester thereafter. Twenty-eight students from various health professions (osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, dental, nursing, and applied nutrition dietetics) and public health major formed 7 IP teams during AY 2022-2023. Four large group meetings were conducted by faculty instructors facilitating students through program activities, which included individual activities, such as writing reflections, and team activities. Each team generated a patient case using their clinical experiences or provided resources, and created a patient-centered framework that incorporated patient’s medical conditions, socioeconomic status, and community and environmental factors. Then the framework was used to design tailored interventions to improve the overall health of their patients. Pre-and post-program surveys were administered to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Students collectively showed significant improvement in the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale (ISVS-21) that measures students’ potential abilities to function in an interprofessional team (pre 84.7±17.9 vs. post 102.6±19.1), and in the perceived competencies in recognizing the impact of SDOH to patient health and identifying resources to overcome the consequent health care challenges (pre 18.9±6.0 vs. post 27.9±5.7). Students agreed that the program achieved its learning objectives (4.5±0.60 out of 5) and improved their skills in taking socioeconomic context into consideration when developing interventions. The results demonstrated the early success of the program, which led to its continuation. More in-depth evaluation will be conducted in the future. Upon reflection, it was encouraging to observe the enthusiastic participation of students from various health professions and the advantage of virtual technology to help facilitate the interactions. Future implication of the online IPE program is the expansion of interprofessional collaborative practice across universities and additional disciplines beyond health professions. This program fulfills the priority of measurable learning in interprofessional practice and education curriculum.