OACA is excited to announce our second cohort of students in the Interprofessional Internship Program. Twenty students from across the health sciences have been accepted and matched with core projects with clinical and community partners in Minnesota. The goal of the program is to provide students with an opportunity to engage other health professionals in shared problem solving. During the course of the projects, interns learn to apply leadership practices that support equitable and effective interprofessional collaboration. Interns develop and lead a monthly professional development series for their peers and benefit from networking and mentorship opportunities.
To give you a sense of the breadth and depth of the projects and clinical partners, take a look at this year’s cohort and what they will be working on:
Improving Patient Outcomes with GuidePoint Pharmacy
Rebecca Bianchi, BA, School of Public Health
Elena Tran, BA, School of Public Health
Project: By improving interprofessional communications at high-risk times, such as transitions of care, we want to help minimize mental health disparities and improve patient outcomes. By utilizing a primary care team based approach, we can implement tools like care plans to expand our outreach to vulnerable patient populations.The project will introduce and implement a communication platform that is easily utilized by the entire primary care team, especially during crisis situations.
Expanding a Tiered Huddle System with the Veterans Administration
Colton Cannon, BS, School of Dentistry
Claire Knutson, BS, School of Public Health
Project: A tiered huddle system was recently implemented, designed to manage the safety and risk concerns from employees. The hope is to expand these huddles across the organization. An intern team would help to develop and implement tools to scale up this work, including development of an objective method to monitor the lifecycle of the tiered huddle system and monitor team alignment.
Developing a Mentor Model with Community-University Health Care Center
Mila Centrella, BA, School of Public Health
Vanessa Santamaria, BS, School of Public Health
Ally Taubenheim, RN, PHN, BSN, School of Nursing
Project: Propose a mentor model with current interns supporting and orienting a new intern and getting them going. Existing interns will teach some of the skills they learned already as the organization works on new projects. Interns will develop templates for trending quantitative and qualitative patient satisfaction data at varying levels, map annual workflow for surveys, and develop structure for reports in the peer review process.
Advancing Student Leadership and Peer Mentorship with the Center for Interprofessional Health
Sara Dasler, BS, College of Liberal Arts
Bethany O'Bryan BS, College of Veterinary Medicine
Project: The Center for Interprofessional Health co-lead intern position serves three purposes: 1) Promotes advanced personal leadership development in an interprofessional context; 2) Provides mentorship to and leadership of incoming intern cohorts; 3) Contributes to the advancement of novel interprofessional initiatives in line with UMN Strategic Plan priorities through cross-sector collaboration approaches.
Engaging Communities with the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education
Tara Dillon MA, School of Nursing
Lizz Johnson, BA, AA, College of Pharmacy
Poornima Vasireddy, MS, BDS, NTR, School of Dentistry
Project: To support the advancement of two of the strategic imperatives that are closely aligned: racism within health care teams and the engagement of individuals, families and communities in the Nexus. These themes will be a focus of the Nexus Summit, held in September and October, and specific project goals will come out of action planning associated with that meeting. Interns will develop and refine the patient, family and community curated resource collection, curate a special collection focused on aspects of racism and caste within health care teams, and develop practical tools and resources to promote awareness and engagement of key topics, issues and opportunities.
Community Health Needs with Welia Health
Nathan Evans, BS, School of Public Health
Hannah Saalsaa, BS, Medical School
Project: Welia Health recently shifted to a private not-for-profit 501c3 organization. Interns in this project will conduct a community health needs assessment consistent with the expectations of section 501(r)(3), facilitate discussions surrounding implementation strategies to meet identified community health needs, and present their report to senior leadership and governing board.
Developing Interprofessional Education Resources with HealthPartners
Brandon Gilmer, BS, School of Public Health
Julie Ntegeye, BA, School of Public Health
Breana Stang, BS, Center for Allied Health
Project: Interns will compile and develop resources on Interprofessional education and teaming, create a resource webpage, and develop a teaming toolkit that builds off of the HealthPartners Teaming Framework. Toolkit items will be tested with longitudinal NP/PA students in spring of 2022.
Supporting Interprofessional Community Health Initiatives with UMN Morris Challenge
Adey Fentaw, BA, School of Public Health
Janette Romero Saenz, BA, School of Public Health
Aisha Waseem, BS, College of Pharmacy
Project: The UMN Morris Challenge promotes sustainability, practical solutions, and community cooperation to engage communities to improve health and quality of life. Interns will support the Challenge director in garnering data, community interest, expertise, and delivery approaches to engage populations in active change. Interns will support the conceptualization and launch of interprofessional community health initiatives in west central Minnesota based on the needs of the populations involved.
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