West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships

School Committee Meeting Minutes

Monday, March 17, 2003

Days Inn, Flatwoods

In Attendance: Hilda Heady, Jodie Jackson, Robert Blake, Elizabeth Richmond, Sonya McClelland, April Vestal, Richard Meckstroth, Carla See, Ralph Utzman, Stephen Thomas, Patti Crawford, Imogene Foster, Helen Baker

Approval of Minutes - The minutes of the November 18, 2002 School Committee meeting were approved unanimously (Meckstroth/Crawford).

Needle stick Policy - Imogene said she had received a message from Jo Ann Raines suggesting items to be included in a RHEP needle stick policy. Imogene indicated she will incorporate these suggestions in a draft policy for the committee’s review at the next meeting. A procedure for implementing the policy will also be proposed with information related to availability of a “drug kit”.

She assured the committee that all necessary information will be in the draft. In the interim, schools are to use the WVU School of Medicine policy or their own school policy. The needle stick policy will be on the agenda for the next meeting.

Insurance Coverage for Blood/fluid/Needle stick Exposures

Imogene reported that Jo Ann Raines also raised the question about coverage for needle stick injuries. Jo Ann asked that this item be included on the next agenda.

Addition of Allied Health Representative to Advisory Panel – Ralph stated that due to limited attendance at the last meeting, the group was unable to select an allied health representative. He hopes the groups will be able to select a representative soon.

New Business

Concerns related to rotations with specialists in urban settings – New item added to agenda

Following a meeting with the Evaluation Committee, Hilda and Jodie asked if they could bring an item for review by the Committee. Jodie brought it to the committee’s attention that there are specialist preceptors on the Grafton website. She stated that Norm Ferrari wants specialization rotations for fourth year medical students. These rotations are only available at Clarksburg and Fairmont, which are not classified rural. Hilda said there is possibly miscommunication by the scheduling coordinator at WVU but it was not previously approved by the school committee for large cities to meet rural requirements. Steve said he felt it would be good idea to talk to Norm and JoAnn about this. He does not have a problem with the students going to specialty rotations and gives them “other rural” credit. Hilda said there is a variance to the policy that requires that both parties (school and consortia) agree to a specialty rotation. This is to be communicated in writing to Hilda and she has never received any requests for review. Patti said you have to look at consistency between schools as well. Imogene asked what the next step for this issue might be. Hilda said she needed to find out how the rotations have been approved at the school level. Patti said it needs to be clarified if the preceptor in these instances is RHEP or not. WVSOM has a lot of rural preceptors. Carla said this would not apply to the School of Pharmacy. Hilda will talk to Norm and get back to Steve on what to do.

Ralph stated that at the beginning, PT used urban sites such as Fairmont and Clarksburg because he did not have enough rural sites. They have since brought more sites on, but inpatient rehab is still needed. None of these are in RHEP areas. This rotation fits best in the third year due to need of content and experience prior. PT had to outline what types of experiences students would have and in what sequence. The aim is to have a combination of outpatient and acute care. They are currently using mostly outpatient private practices. PT has continued to use Clarksburg rotations for one month to ensure the students get the experience they need. Hilda said her understanding of this 5 year plan was to get more sites recruited and to get enough sites to do all rural. She also pointed out that we have more medicine preceptors than students and so for that reason it is not the same and does not make sense. Ralph will write a letter to Hilda outlining his plan and the school committee will oversee.

Carla said the accreditation team pointed out that the pharmacy students need more urban opportunities. There are not enough sites in WV and some current sites may not meet criteria for certain required rotations for fourth year students. There will be an accreditation visit in the fall and Hilda offered to assist. The school will use the standard documents including the IDS information and brochures. Carla said she would talk with Hilda about the accreditation visit in the next couple of weeks to see how Hilda could assist with information. She also informed the group that University of Charleston (UC) plans to add a School of Pharmacy. UC has not started the formal steps to add the program yet, but is looking at hiring a dean. There are already too few sites in the state to accommodate the pharmacy students at WVU. Patti suggested we may look at Carla’s needs and how AHEC might be able to help.

Jodie said that ROVER has been entering the BM Spur School of Nursing students into Tracker for a nine month period, increasing the numbers of students at the consortium considerably. She reported that although these students have a nine month clinical rotation, they are only in a clinical setting at RHEP a small portion of that nine month period, Therefore, the data being reported is misleading. Jodie reported that the Evaluation committee voted unanimously to not include technical programs in RHEP. The current policy states that the school must be affiliated with an institution of higher education. This school is not. However, Imogene pointed out that although the policy may be in conflict with H. B. 213 that makes provisions for LPNs/technical students. The specifics of this state code will be reviewed at the next Schools Committee meeting. Jodie distributed a handout regarding the number of RHEP hours by institution and school. Hilda indicated that we need to do a better job of defining what constitutes a RHEP rotation.

A subcommittee of Robert, Patti, April, and Jodie will outline what constitutes a rotation to be counted and report at the next meeting.

Recommendations of the Visions Workgroup of the State Advisory Panel “Working Document”

Ralph shared a report from the sub-committee reviewing items 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 of the “Working Document”. April suggested that the report needs to be expanded to include specific information related to graduate competencies and curricula with emphasis on how specific recommendations are being met. She also suggested that a list of prerequisites for rotations, such as academic standing, skills, etc., needs to be added. Each discipline has its own method to evaluate. The recommendations given to the schools committee are to be addressed from a schools committee perspective. Some work has already been done on this. It is possible that there just needs to be additions to this information to make it more specific and more like a work plan. The committee will review this information at the next meeting when there is more time for discussion. Ralph agreed to work with the sub-committee to revise their report.

There were not further reports from other sub-committees regarding the recommendations that are to be addressed by the Schools Committee.

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.