Partnering with Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities to Transform Health Outcomes - Phase 2
Background: The Partnering to Transform Health Outcomes with Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PATH-PWIDD) Program, funded by the Administration for Community Living, is a workforce development program aimed at improving the education of healthcare professional students in the health and healthcare of persons with IDD through implementation of high-impact interprofessional curricular materials and practice experiences at our five core partner institutions.
Design: The Collective Impact Model is our organizing framework and we are guided conceptually by the approach of Participatory Action.
Results: In the first two years, we carried out Phase 1 of PATH-PWIDD using Collective Impact tenets of achieving a common agenda, ensuring continuous communication and building backbone support. We are now in Phase 2, implementation of our high-impact materials and practice experiences at the five institutions, with initial roll-out in the 2022-23 academic year. Building community-academic partnerships, the Rush PATH-PWIDD team is developing an enhanced IPE service-learning clinical experience for students in partnership with a Community-Based Organization (CBO) providing services in nearby communities. In the IPE clinical experience, students conduct telehealth visits with persons with IDD who have chronic conditions and their support persons to develop health goals with action plans. The teams at the Golisano Institute for Developmental Disability Nursing at St. John Fisher College and the University of Minnesota will pilot delivery of the Interprofessional Competency-Based IDD Core Curriculum (SOI-ICC-IDD), developed in partnership with The Special Olympics International. The SOI-ICC-IDD is a program to increase the competence of the overall workforce (not just specifically the healthcare workforce) in addressing the needs of persons with IDD. Interprofessional health professions students will be involved in implementation. The team at Villanova University is enhancing current education and practice experiences that include developing case studies, experiences with standardized patients with IDD, and simulation lab experiences. Participatory Action requires strategies to shift power from the professionals to persons in the involved populations ie. persons with IDD. We have established an Advocate Advisory Committee. All efforts are being developed with input from self-advocates with IDD.
Conclusion: Our Phase 2 efforts can be replicated and tailored to the needs of existing IPE Programs that have associated clinical experiences and/or that have efforts such as case studies, standardized patient experiences, simulation labs, and classroom experiences.
Reflections: Ongoing evaluation and reflection are necessary in developing community-academic partnerships and strategies to shift power toward meaningful partnership with persons with IDD.
