Trauma-Informed Care Training for Healthcare Providers: Online Clinical Training Cases from the Office on Women's Health

Exposure to traumatic events are potentially the greatest threat to health. Research findings, including the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study, illustrate the enormous impact that trauma has on health outcomes. Exposure to traumatic events predisposes affected individuals to poor health outcomes, including obesity, heart disease and HIV. Patients often do not disclose trauma information to their healthcare providers, and even when they do, physicians are not always aware of the impact this history may have on the patient’s health.

In order to address this problem, The Office on Women’s Health, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has created an innovative and evidenced-based set of on-line, clinical cases. These cases present tools and skills to help healthcare providers to interact effectively with patients, particularly women and girls with histories of trauma. The goal is to promote the patient-provider relationship, improve patient engagement in care, and prevent re-traumatization.  There is a growing consensus that trauma-informed care is a necessary practice to implement in patient settings. 

Due to the demand, innovation and accessibility, we expect these online trainings to become a model program that can be replicated and expanded to other populations such as men and boys. We have done an exhaustive search to ensure that nothing like these online, trauma-informed trainings exists, and have found that such a resource is sought after by many experts and institutions.  We will demonstrate segments from the first foundational cases during the session.