Integration of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in Primary Care Settings.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has been shown to improve food and economic security, advance health and educational outcomes, and reduce health costs. Despite proven benefits, 54% of those eligible for WIC in Denver County are not enrolled, likely due to documented barriers including stigma, psychological costs, administrative resources, and physical access. In partnership with Denver County WIC, Denver Health's Federally Qualified Health Centers collaborated to create a Specialized WIC Co-Enrollment program to integrate WIC services into pediatric well-child and obstetric visits.

Comorbidity indices: a call for the integration of physical and mental health.

Comorbidity indices are commonly used in health services research as a measure of, or as a control for, the severity of a person's medical state. Currently, there is not a comorbidity index for mental health diagnoses, despite the fact that almost half of Americans have a diagnosable mental health condition at least once in their lifetime. This commentary calls for the integration of mental and behavioral health in comorbidity indices to appropriately account for the role of mental health in overall morbidity and mortality.

Fecal microbiota transplantation for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection: The patient experience.

Background: Although effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has been adequately documented, the patient experience of undergoing FMT has not.

Methods: We carried out a qualitative interview study using semistructured questions relating to aspects of health pre-FMT, during FMT, and post-FMT periods with 17 participants. Inductive coding was used to identify core themes during the periods.

Interprofessional education in an enrichment programme for prospective health sciences students.

Effective and meaningful interprofessional education opportunities for prospective health sciences students are important to prepare students for the work environment they will encounter after training. This article briefly describes the Summer Academic Enrichment Program, a programme for students pursuing entry to dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, and physical therapy schools. The programme evaluation includes investigation of the programme's effectiveness to impact attitudes towards interprofessional teams and collaboration.

Health disparities and underserved populations: a potential solution, medical school partnerships with free clinics to improve curriculum.

Health-care educators share the social responsibility to teach medical students about social determinants of health and health-care disparities and subsequently to encourage medical students to pursue residencies in primary care and medical practice in underserved communities. Free clinics provide care to underserved communities, yet collaborative partnerships with such organizations remain largely untapped by medical schools. Free clinics and medical schools in 10 US states demonstrate that such partnerships are geographically feasible and have the potential to mutually benefit both organizational types.

Beyond diagnoses: family medicine core themes in student reflective writing.

Background And Objectives: We share qualitative study results of third-year medical student writings during their family medicine clerkship utilizing a reflective writing exercise from 2005 and 2013.

Methods: For this paper, 50 student writings were randomly selected from the 2005 cohort in addition to 50 student writings completed by the 2013 cohort. Deductive thematic analysis utilizing Atlas.

Teaching sonoanatomy to anesthesia faculty and residents: utility of hands-on gel phantom and instructional video training models.

Study Objective: Thousands of patients worldwide annually receive neuraxial anesthesia and analgesia. Obesity, pregnancy, and abnormal spinal anatomy pose challenges for accurate landmark palpation. Further, spinal sonoanatomy is not uniformly taught in residency education, even though its use has previously been shown to improve identification of relevant structures and decrease procedural complications and failure rates.

Facilitators and barriers to implementing antimicrobial stewardship strategies: Results from a qualitative study.

Background: Many hospitals have implemented antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) and have included in their programs strategies such as prior authorization and audit and feedback. However there are few data concerning the facilitators and barriers that ASPs face when implementing their strategies. We conducted a qualitative study to discern factors that lead to successful uptake of ASP strategies.

Short-term service trips and the interprofessional team: a perspective from Honduras.

Short-term service trips from the USA annually spend over $250 million dollars to provide healthcare to individuals in developing nations. These trips often uniquely define goals as related to changes in the host population and overlook the valuable benefits potentially incurred by the trip volunteers. The Honduras Outreach Medical Brigada Relief Effort utilizes an interprofessional team approach to develop the dual goals of improving health and quality of life in host communities and improving interprofessional teamwork values and skills among participants.

Medical interpreters: improvements to address access, equity, and quality of care for limited-English-proficient patients.

Limited-English-proficient (LEP) patients in the United States experience a variety of health care disparities associated with language barriers, including reduced clinical encounter time and substandard medical treatment compared with their English-speaking counterparts. In most current U.S.

Addressing health care disparities and access to dental care while improving education: schools of dentistry and federally qualified health centers.

Oral health disparities in the United States are a result of economic, educational, and social barriers faced by vulnerable and underserved individuals. The oral health care infrastructure is continuously challenged to provide access to quality care with a shortage of dental professionals and expanding oral health disparities. Federally qualified health centers (FQHC) provide oral health care in underserved communities, while schools of dentistry strive to provide students and residents with experience in underserved communities to address access to care issues and produce oral health professionals who will practice in these communities.

Improving public health through student-led interprofessional extracurricular education and collaboration: a conceptual framework.

In the US, health care professionals are trained predominantly in uniprofessional settings independent of interprofessional education and collaboration. Yet, these professionals are tasked to work collaboratively as part of an interprofessional team in the practice environment to provide comprehensive care to complex patient populations. Although many advantages of interprofessional education have been cited in the literature, interprofessional education and collaboration present unique barriers that have challenged educators and practitioners for years.

The development of student-led interprofessional education and collaboration.

Prominent healthcare organizations have called upon the academic and health communities to utilize interprofessional education (IPE) and collaboration to meet the changing needs of patients worldwide. Two student-led initiatives have overcome the various barriers that have historically impeded IPE and have embraced the call to improve the health of local and international underserved patients. This short report describes these two organizations, the International Health Service Collaborative at the University of South Florida and the Inter Health Professionals Alliance at Virginia Commonwealth University, and aims to encourage emerging health professional students and educators to embrace student-led IPE.

Health disparities among highly vulnerable populations in the United States: a call to action for medical and oral health care.

Healthcare in the United States (US) is burdened with enormous healthcare disparities associated with a variety of factors including insurance status, income, and race. Highly vulnerable populations, classified as those with complex medical problems and/or social needs, are one of the fastest growing segments within the US. Over a decade ago, the US Surgeon General publically challenged the nation to realize the importance of oral health and its relationship to general health and well-being, yet oral health disparities continue to plague the US healthcare system.