Three major trends are affecting our nation’s health care system. The first is a movement from a system of hospital to community based care. The second is an increased emphasis on the provision of care through interdisciplinary teams. The third is a greater importance on providing care to underserved communities. Given these trends it becomes imperative to prepare health professionals to practice in this new environment. Each of these developments pose their own unique problems. When addressing all three together the problems become confounded. New models of educationally sound and theoretically based programming is needed. One approach is for educational institutions to develop a coalition with the community that reflect the needs of the community. The Center for Collaborative Research at Thomas Jefferson University has implemented a Community health empowerment Model (CHEM) that links academic faculty, community leaders and City officials to work together to identify a meaningful set of experiences for students to enable them to be successful working in underserved communities. The project is a funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is driven by a five stage model of collaboration which is grounded in the literature on team building and on Social Exchange Theory. The presentation will describe the project and the model of collaboration. It will also discuss how the components of the theoretical model explain the behavior of participants and how this behavior has led to the formation of a successful coalition.
Learning Objectives: At the end of the session participants will be able to: 1. Describe a conceptual model that can guide individuals and groups in forming an academic-community coalition. 2. Understand the theoretical underpinngs of this conceptual model. 3. Describe how an academic-community coalition can help prepare students to work in an underserved community
Keywords: Coalition, Collaboration
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Center for Collaborative Research, College of Health Professions, Thomas Jefferson University
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.