“Social, Medical and Dental Components of Integrated Pediatric Care”

The focus on interprofessional collaborative practice is seen as the way to improve the healthcare of individuals and communities, reducing costs and increasing value. We still face the challenge of having most of our health professionals trained to demonstrate the skills and competencies specific to their own profession. To address this gap, health profession educators are preparing students to demonstrate skills and competencies through interprofessional practice and education (IPE). For that, there is an urge to provide them with experiential activities in order to assure their readiness. The present experiential project aims to have students from the dental, social work, and medical schools work together as an interprofessional team with a pediatric patient currently receiving care at the UM Dental Pediatric Clinic. After evaluating the patient’s medical, social and dental needs, students will create a “comprehensive treatment plan” , which will be presented to the patient/family/guardian.
Methods: Students will engage in four 30-minute group-learning sessions (via Zoom) and two patient/family encounters (hybrid). Sessions will be facilitated by preceptors, and a Canvas course will provide support material for the students. As a team, students will be assigned a pediatric patient, identify problems and barriers, and establish objectives to address the problems identified. They will learn how to develop an Interprofessional mindset to identify, practice, and apply areas of collaboration using IPE skills/competencies such as “Roles and responsibilities” and “Values and Ethics”. “Communication” and “Teamwork” will be secondary competencies. Their final product will be the creation of a customized “dental, medical and social” treatment plan to present to the patient/ family member/guardian. Learning outcomes and IPE background will be measured by using the Jefferson tool, students’ surveys (pre- and post-activity), as well as a post activity patient satisfaction survey.

Results: The anticipated results for this ongoing project include students learning outcomes and patient outcomes. Students’ outcomes include: 1) Improving IPE collaboration skills by knowing better the “Roles and Responsibilities” of each profession involved in the project (Dentistry, Medicine and Social Work). 2) Improving knowledge and practicing “Values and Ethics” concepts by interacting with a real patient and playing an active role as a member of a healthcare team; 3) Improving communication and teamwork are secondary outcomes that will also be assessed during the project. Patient outcomes include: 1) Receiving IPE education, tailored and customized person-centered treatment plan including social, dental, and medical needs, and goals to improve dental, mental, and overall health.