School Committee
Draft Minutes
May 20, 2002
Days Inn
Flatwoods, WV
Attendees: Imogene Foster, Norman Ferrari, Brenda Michael, Mike Lewis, Richard Meckstroth, Melanie Posch, Ralph Utzman, Carla Campbell, April Vestal, Kathleen Bors, Shannon Bell, Patti Crawford, Nancy Dunn, Marilyn Fox, JoAnn Raines, Hilda R. Heady and Sandra Baker
Dr. Ferrari called the meeting to order at 11:35 AM.
Minutes approved as posted.
Carla See sent Dr. Ferrari a list of potential sites, around the state, to store drugs. Dr. Ferrari passed out the list and a cover letter. If anyone knows of other storage sites please let the School Committee know. Shannon Bell will ask the Site Coordinators about sites at their meeting tomorrow. In order to include a site in an RHEP county, does the site need to have RHEP status? Smaller hospitals do not have a full-time pharmacist. JoAnn Raines stated that Cabell Huntington Hospital serves a couple consortia. By using bigger hospitals, we may be able to cut down on sites. In determining appropriate sites, the cost of the drug, storage kit, etc is needed. Patti Crawford was wondering if a retail store is utilized and is closed how will the drug be obtained. She was reassured that if the pharmacist is knowledgeable of the program, there will be someone on call to dispense the drug. The major problem is who is going to pay for the drugs and treatment. Insurance coverage is mandated at WVSOM and WVU School of Medicine. The School of Nursing does not mandate insurance. Could someone at the HEPC mandate or get insurance that is more uniform? There should be standard care in all areas. Dr. Ferrari will take to the Statewide Student Services meeting. Conform to our standards for students to go through process for safety. Incorporate into OSHA training at schools orientations.
Shannon Bell reported that only RHEP nursing students receive RHEP credit for doing rotations at Health Right Clinics in Charleston. At most Health Right Clinic there is a lack of supervision and most Health Right Clinics are located in RHEP forbidden cities. The committee is not opposed to using Health Right Clinics, but the key is on-site supervision. Who would do the students’ evaluation? There does not seem to be appropriate coverage in Charleston for Health Right. Nursing experience at Health Right Clinic has been excellent. A particular discipline must be supervised by the appropriate person within their scope.
Kathleen Bors reported that each consortium would take the 29 HP 2010 objectives listed on the web and identify six objectives that fit the needs of their particular consortium and implement them. April is working with Mike McCarthy on a pull down menu on tracker for reporting. There are currently four pilot sites: Cabin Creek Consortium, Rivers & Bridges Consortium, Rural Mountain Consortium and EWVRHEC-Petersburg. The HP 2010 Objectives tie in with the Visions Workgroup recommendations. These recommendations will be assigned/referred to individual committees for feedback on how the particular committee has addressed the recommendation/goal or what they plan to do to address the recommendation/goal. A worksheet was passed around the room showing the recommendation, committees referred to and the number of the HP 2010 objective. Dr. Bors will work with the chairs of each committee to get feedback and report to the Joint Curriculum/Outreach Committee. Patti Crawford stated that the mission is to retain health professionals and improve health in WV. She also stated that the Legislators love to the 2010 document has measurable information in it. Patti Crawford and Shannon Bell worked on a template (example) for each consortium to refer to. Jennifer Weiss spoke to all site coordinators regarding Healthy People 2010. Until sub-objectives are added as a pull down menu, one can cut and paste from their monthly reports. Each consortium could list their problem areas on the web-site for students to be able to pick their community service project or decide on one of their own. Dr. Ferrari suggested that this be taken to the next level by students writing an essay reflecting on their experience.
Dr. Ferrari stated that he notified the Executive Director that he needed to step down as Chair of the School Committee, but will remain a member. Imogene Foster from the School of Nursing has agreed to serve as the new Chair.
This statement was brought forth as an FYI for the committee.
Imogene Foster addressed a position statement that was approved by the Graduate Curriculum Committee for the School of Nursing that includes both the Charleston Division and the Morgantown Campus. This statement addresses the comments and concerns of the demands on the through the rural health program. Imogene passed out a position statement regarding Dr. Martin’s letter to Hilda requesting and exemption of students from some RHEP requirements. This statement clarifies how student hours will be allocated for RHEP rotations (minimum requirements). Students will enter a rotation with a service learning project and will work with site coordinators, campus-based course faculty, and field faculty for implementation of project during the rural rotation. The possibility of opportunities for funding their projects will be explored and applications completed prior to entering a rural rotation. The major differences are as follows:
1. Reduce the number of hours for IDS (minimum expectation). Students are encouraged to attend as many IDS as they can.
2. Community Service will consist of 36 hours, which will be planned with input from site coordinators and campus faculty. This is a change for graduate students only.
Ralph Utzman brought up the issue of an Allied Health Representative being on the Advisory Panel. The School Committee decided that one individual from the Allied Health Professions become a member of the Advisory Panel. A sub-committee of the school committee would be made up of Allied Health Professionals. One member of the sub-committee would serve on the Advisory Panel and report back to the sub-committee. Ralph agreed to get a group together and come up with the name of the representative.
Hilda stated that she feels that we need to get a more formalized or structured process to deal with quality of educational experience in the field relative to preceptors. Each school has their own system of evaluating preceptors and making decisions about how to handle any particular situation with a preceptor or should just let word of mouth by students take care of the situation. In the last year, comments from people that are in the schools or the communities talk about RHEP as a fluff and that rotations are for entertainment value, which brings up the issue of quality. The schools are not actively in control of or in charge of the quality of the educational experience. Each school takes a different approach to this. Hilda firmly believes that the academic integrity of this whole program should always remain with the schools, and that the partnership is there to facilitate whatever standards the schools come up with and are appropriate for the education of their students. She asked that the school committee to figure out how to document or talk about a process by finding out what schools currently do, discuss it as a group and decide whether or not it meets the needs. If there are gaps, figuring out through the partnership we could make improvements.
Dr. Ferrari said that for medical students, it is more complicated due to the difference what would be done and how to handle that for a third year clerkship, which has a very rigid structured curriculum. A typical rotation for a fourth year student is a little looser whether on campus or at a RHEP site. There is much less structure and rigor for our fourth year students. Dr. Ferrari asked for a little brainstorming regarding the fourth year students. Hilda asked if every school evaluates the preceptor and Dr. Ferrari stated yes. Hilda envisions a document describing how one gets an adjunct appointment at the various schools and a document describing how preceptors are evaluated at the different schools. A discussion followed.
Hilda needs to be better informed and able to accurately discuss what our quality control mechanisms are from the academic side. She thought all of our preceptors have adjunct faculty appointments and now she finds out they do not.
Patti stated that these issues are a result of community service.
Hilda would like for each school to describe how their preceptors are evaluated and what their requirements are relative for adjunct faculty. If one does not have adjunct faculty, please state why and if you have them for required courses please state that. Please email this information to Hilda.
Dr. Meckstroth requested an update on compensating field faculty. Hilda reported that most of the site coordinators should have dealt with preceptors on this issue. The finance committee instituted a series of budgetary guidelines for this current fiscal year that are designed to guide us to a zero-based budgeting, so all of the funds available will be allocated based on fixed costs and variable costs. Every consortium will submit a budget annually starting from zero. The committee did an extensive analysis of historical expenditures at each site, looked at audits at each site, and also looked at an independent audit that was done. This particular auditing firm gave some recommendations of what they thought was fixed costs. A survey of known paid field faculty was made through the site coordinators. Out of those surveyed, the greater percentage of the field faculty indicated they would still participate in the program even if their fees were reduced or nothing. Sixty-five percent of the Field Faculty said they would still be a part of the RHEP program. Fixed costs were the site coordinator and secretary salaries, Learning Resource Center materials and telecommunication costs. Variable costs were preceptors’ salaries and housing. Preceptors’ salaries caused the greatest amount of problems for the consortia. The guidelines are that the preceptors will be paid by the number of hours for IDS preparation and presentation; they will be paid at the end of the year as a Honiara (assuming that funding is available) $300 to $500 per student per rotation. The state averages $50 per hour statewide for IDS preparation up to 5 hours. Allocation guideline policy is on the web. On-site clinical directors (all disciplines) will be paid $17,000 per year. Each consortium board is responsible for developing the duties and responsibilities of the on-site clinical director. The Faculty Development Committee has the oversight responsibility to that position. Hilda stated that it is the responsibility of the on-site clinical directors’ is to make sure that we have all of these preceptors. Recruiting preceptors is not one of the duties of the on-site clinical director. Another issue that impacted the budget this year is that the Vice Chancellor made a decision to set aside and pull out 3% of everyone’s budget to retain in Charleston to use to hire a fiscal manager in HEPC that works solely for the Vice Chancellor. Dr. Lewis is now considering rebating some of those funds back to the schools and the sites for new approaches to get more residents and nurse practitioners in training at the rural sites. The on-site clinical directors job description is not a policy, just a recommendation. Now that the on-site clinical directors are going to be paid, their job description could be made into a policy. The Faculty Development Committee requested input on making an OSCD policy.
Meeting adjourned at 1:28 PM