The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #67542

Gara M. Mosier, PhD¹, Rick G. Guyton, PhD¹, M. Elizabeth Irwin-Clay, PhD¹, and Melvin R. Redford, MSW². (1) Area Health Education Center-Northwest, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 2907 E. Joyce Blvd., Fayetteville, AR 72703, 479-521-8269, gmosier@ahecnw.uams.edu, (2) Arkansas River Valley Rural Health Cooperative, Inc., 9723 W. State Hwy 22, Ratcliff, AR 72951

A family practice medical clinic launched a pilot patient education/patient counseling program in 1998. Since the inaugural year, the program has continued to incorporate evolutionary changes to better serve patients. During the first two years, the program was focused on developing a theoretical foundation and implementing services into a clinic-based family practice residency program. The program incorporates the theoretical framework of DiClimente and Prochaska’s Stages of Change model and includes health promotion, disease prevention, and chronic disease management components. The program has identified eleven high priority health education topics in which individual education modules have been developed. A multidisciplinary team consisting of doctoral level health educators, clinical psychologists, doctoral level clinical pharmacists, physicians, nurse practitioners, and respiratory therapists has designed and continues to implement the educational modules. As the clinical program developed in the family practice residency program and became a natural part of delivering healthcare, a rural hospital consortium questioned whether the same model could be applied to their community. The multi-level clinical patient education/patient counseling program is now being utilized in a rural hospital setting as a unique service to promote the hospital and complement traditional medical services of rural providers. Design, implementation and evaluation methods of both clinical and community settings will be compared. Benefits and barriers of transferring the prototype patient education/patient counseling clinical model into a rural community setting will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the components of a multi-level patient education/patient counseling prototype model integrated into a clinic-based family practice residency program.
• Describe innovative strategies for planning, implementing, and evaluating a multi-level clinical patient education/patient counseling initiative among hospitals within a rural health cooperative.

Keywords: Health Education, Health Promotion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.