Teaching a new technique or technology is the norm at New Jersey\u2019s schools of medicine and health, but teaching amid a shift to population health management and how to care for patients under the new dynamic is an interesting challenge.Most schools have handled it by looking for inspiration in developing countries, as well as ensuring active engagement with real-world needs in the state.
\nThe changing field presents itself at a time when the state has seen a growth in health education \u2014 with new schools having been built in the past five years, as well as growth in existing schools.
\nOfficials from these schools spoke about the curriculum around population health management at the New Jersey Department of Health\u2019s annual summit at Rider University in Lawrenceville last week.
\nThe panel, lead by DOH Commissioner Cathleen Bennett, focused on the various programs and needs for new student training in the state.
\nAmanda Birnbaum, chair of the department of public health at Montclair State University encourages students to focus on the deeper roots of problems, and understanding behavioral economics is key to population health.
\n\u201cWe need to be thinking more about what is causing these problems, and how do we go upstream to try to fix them and prevent the problems from happening in the first place,\u201d she said. \u201cThinking broadly about who we work with and who our audiences are.\u201d
\nBirnbaum said the schools has also seen an uptick in Fulbright Scholars who want to study health, and in turn, the school learns from these international students about population health.
\nThe school has graduated students from Afghanistan, South Africa, Indonesia and Mozambique, according to Birnbaum.
\nBonita Stanton, dean of the yet-to-open Seton Hall-Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, said she brings some understanding of population health from her time working in Bangladesh.
\nShe was approached by some of the individuals and asked why she was treating rather than educating and providing prevention practices.
\nWith input from the group of largely uneducated women, Stanton was able to work with the informal community structure and put together a study of the local population and figure out what was the root cause and how to change the unintentionally harmful practices of the community.
\nDona Schneider, associate dean at Rutgers University\u2019s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, said the school helps train students by not only focusing on the cross section of public health and medicine, but also on the active environment of changes in communities and policy. Community leaders and politicians are invited to speak to students to give them a real-time update about the issues they will soon face.
\nKaren Magee-Sauer, dean of the college of Science and Mathematics at Rowan University, said the data analytics students are a hot commodity, to the point where Cooper University Health tried to hire seniors before they had graduated.
\nThat led to a projects class that helped the hospital in Camden analyze its raw data.
\nOne benefit already seen from the collaboration is figuring out why a certain population was staying longer after a procedure than others, and creating a scheduling fix to avoid that costly problem.
\n\u201cJust from that project, they\u2019re going to save millions of dollars,\u201d Magee-Sauer said.
\nMichael Avaltroni, dean of the school of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Farleigh Dickinson University, said this includes giving students a chance to be get on the streets and interact with communities.
\n\u201cPart of the course is teaching them about the diseases but much more of the course is bringing them into the community to understand the patient population. And the stories we hear from students about how they have changed their view of how they see these patients\u2026we want them to understand that these are people just like them,\u201d Avaltroni said. \u201cA series of unfortunate events or a series of circumstances put them in a positon whereby they are on a very different path.\u201d
\nThe students don\u2019t actively give medical advice or engage in any sort of practice, but what they do is listen, Avaltroni said.
\nThe goal is to transform the role of a pharmacist from simply handing out medication, to being in charge of managing chronic diseases, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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