WVRHEP/AHEC Community Outreach/Curriculum Committee
Monday, March 12, 2007
Minutes
In Attendance: Kathleen Bors (Chair), Patricia Crawford, Joyce Martin, Haylee Heinsberg, David Brown, Kristi Pritt, Hilda R. Heady, Kathryn Greenlief, Dennis McCutcheon, April Vestal, Sandra Pope, JoAnn Raines
The committee met to discuss the goals areas of the WV Area Health Education Center/ Rural Health Education Partnerships Strategic Work Plan – 2006-2009. The committee addressed the objectives that outreach/curriculum were responsible for addressing and providing updates/comment.
Goal Area 1: Discover ways to further combine and/or merge programs while maintaining program quality, wise us of resources, and complementary program functions.
Objective 7 – Annually review our own history for strengths and successes.
Process – review previous reports, minutes evaluations and program outcomes for models and “best practices” within the partnership.
The committee recommended that one of the best ways to accomplish this objective would be to collect personal stories or comments from students rotating or practicing health professionals. Site coordinators may be able to do this during exit interviews with students. Some comments are found within the SERFE data, but are not student-specific. Hilda mentioned that it would also be nice to have contact information and permission for reporters to contact these individuals. There have been several times when this information was needed quickly and Hilda or others were on the road and had difficulty coordinating this.
The second way would be to look at the percentage of students completing the SERFE and establish a baseline. There was a suggestion to review SERFE data for information regarding this objective. April will work with Jodie to accomplish and this information will be presented at the June meeting.
Goal Area 2: Increase the role of the schools in educational issues and quality of the program as such occurs at the community level.
Objective 1 – Base all community service and learning projects on school determined educational objectives.
The SOLE modules being piloted with 3 consortia (SEEC, NWVRHEC Region 2, Southern Counties) is one example. Hilda also asked how local boards decide what types of community service project and programs are needed in their consortium. Dennis commented that their board decides informally on this and that most consortia do not have a formal process in place.
Haylee discussed the AHEC team that was going on in Raleigh County and determining community service needs – these teams determined need by working with local groups.
There was a suggestion that a formal process might be a good idea and that this could be reviewed annually. Hilda suggested the COCC come up with a policy on how to prioritize community service/service-learning needs and have boards adopt this policy. Sandra, Hilda and April could train boards around this important piece. Educating people is the key and trusting a process is also important. Fact-find on how boards do this now. Use language in objectives. Hilda also commented that the WVU LCME review showed positive comments coming from the RHEP/AHEC experience. April will explore further with Hilda and Sandra.
Objective 3 – Explore rural training tracks or rural emphasis on campus to improve link between didactic coursework and community rotations.
The committee decided that this objective was also being met through the SOLE modules. A formal presentation of these modules and information proposing that these be available to all sites will be done at the June Schools committee meeting with possibility of state-wide in July 2007.
Objective 4 – In exploring rural training track curricula (item 3 above); examine the relationship of training tracks to the 3 month rural rotation requirement
The committee suggested that this could be accomplished through orientations for students that include RHEP/AHEC as a formal part of their orientation.
The committee did not have time to address goal area 5, objective 5.
The meeting was adjourned.