Projects and Partners
Theme: Collaborate to support the work of community organizations delivering, enhancing, or expanding access to rural and mobile health services, programs, and education.
Patient Education Program & New Governance Process
Allina Health
Allina HealthCare is a not-for-profit health care system that serves urban and rural communities across Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Through staff interviews and audits, interns conducted an extensive analysis of existing patient education resources and practices. With this new information, interns suggested updates to documents such as informational handouts and intake forms. They also created a persuasive presentation on the financial benefits of improved patient education practices.
Increasing Access to Care and Resources
Hennepin Healthcare Pediatric Mobile Health Program
The Hennepin Healthcare Mobile Health Program provides essential pediatric and postpartum care to underserved communities across Hennepin County, but did not initially have a standardized process for screening social determinants of health (SDOH) needs during visits. Interns developed a paper-based SDOH screening tool and a community resource guide focused on SDOH domains, then began pilot testing the new tools in both English and Spanish.
Hometown Food Security Project
Mayo Clinic / Mower County
The Hometown Food Security Project (HFSP) is an organization designed to significantly reduce food insecurity in Mower County. Interns assessed the effectiveness of HFSP’s various initiatives by holding stakeholder meetings, conducting literature reviews, and developing criteria to standardize the evaluation process. Interns then provided insight on unaddressed gaps and opportunities for improvement, especially with a local high school food pantry.
Resource Development for Basic Diabetes Education
Mobile Health Initiative
The University of Minnesota Mobile Health Initiative (MHI), a group of health professional faculty and students, launched in 2020 to address unmet healthcare needs within communities across greater Minnesota. A prominent aspect of MHI events is screening for diabetes and hypertension. A need was identified to address diabetes education at events through resource development as well as standardized training across the MHI volunteers who presented the information. Interns modified existing handouts to improve communication of health information to community members, and created training scripts and video to standardize knowledge and counseling competence regardless of the volunteer presenters’ level of health sciences training.
Expanding Dementia Friendly Dental Practices
Trellis / Metro Area Agency on Aging / Dementia Friends
This project was created to expand training to dental practitioners to better help them address the needs of patients with dementia, as dental practitioners are often not well trained on this condition and may be reluctant to treat patients living with it. The objective was to equip dental professionals with the skills and confidence necessary to fill needs of those experiencing dementia through creating online learning materials that could be more widely distributed and utilized by a larger audience. Interns created 6 hour-long continuing education training modules based on trainings conducted by a subject matter expert, then distributed drafts of the modules to clinicians to seek feedback on potential improvements.
Mental Health Initiative Development
Wayside Recovery Center
Wayside sought to improve access to mental health resources for women living at their inpatient sites, as well as improve education on mental health for their staff. OACA interns developed a sustainable mental health educational program and updated an existing mental health resource list for clients. Through this pilot program, interns developed workshop sessions on topics related to life skills and mental health, then delivered and recorded a total of 6 workshops at Wayside.
Analyzing Behavioral Health Integration across the Wilderness Health Network
Wilderness Health
Wilderness Health is a rural collaborative of healthcare organizations serving approximately 450,000 residents across Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. Wilderness Health implemented an annual Site Self-Assessment (SSA) survey to evaluate the integration of behavioral health services into medical settings. Interns analyzed survey data over a 5-year fiscal period to identify trends, which they then presented to leadership. Interns then conducted interviews and a literature review to identify potential recommendations for improvement based on survey and interview data.
