Quality of Preventive Health Care for Young Children: Strategies for Improvement

Looks at early childhood developmental services, including assessment, education, intervention, and coordination of care. Recommendations include national standards for preventive care, and improvements in health provider training

Exploring the Role of Alternative Break Programs in Students’ Career Development

Higher education institutions play a key role in helping to shape students’ interests and career plans; as such, student affairs practitioners should understand how the co-curricular environments in their domain contribute to students’ career development. The purpose of this study is to explore how one specific co-curricular experience, participation in an Alternative Break (AB) program, may influence students’ career plans

Exploring the Role of Alternative Break Programs in Students’ Career Development

Higher education institutions play a key role in helping to shape students’ interests and career plans; as such, student affairs practitioners should understand how the co-curricular environments in their domain contribute to students’ career development. The purpose of this study is to explore how one specific co-curricular experience, participation in an Alternative Break (AB) program, may influence students’ career plans

Teleneurology clinics for polyneuropathy: a pilot study.

INTRODUCTION:Polyneuropathy (PN) is a common condition with significant morbidity. We developed tele-polyneuropathy (tele-PN) clinics to improve access to neurology and increase guideline-concordant PN care. This article describes the mixed-methods evaluation of pilot tele-PN clinics at three community sites within the Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System. METHODS:For the first 25 patients (48 scheduled visits), we recorded the duration of the tele-PN visit and exam; the performance on three guideline-concordant care indicators (PN screening labs, opiate reduction, physical therapy for falls); and patient-satisfaction scores. We elicited comments about the tele-PN clinic from patients and the clinical team. We combined descriptive statistics with qualitative themes to determine the feasibility and acceptability of the tele-PN clinics. RESULTS:The average tele-PN encounter and exam times were 28.5 and 9.1 min, respectively. PN screening lab completion increased from 80 to 100%. Opiate freedom improved from 68 to 88%. Physical therapy for patients with recent falls increased from 58 to 100%. The tele-PN clinic was preferred for follow-up over in-person clinics in 86% of cases. Convenience was paramount to the clinic's success, saving an average of 231 min per patient in round-trip travel. The medical team's caring and collaborative spirit received high praise. While the clinic's efficiency was equal or superior to in-person care, the limited treatment options for PN and the small clinical exam space are areas for improvement. CONCLUSION:In this pilot, we were able to efficiently see and examine patients remotely, promote guideline-concordant PN care, and provide a high-satisfaction encounter

Bridging the gap between research, policy, and practice: Lessons learned from academic-public partnerships in the CTSA network.

A primary barrier to translation of clinical research discoveries into care delivery and population health is the lack of sustainable infrastructure bringing researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and communities together to reduce silos in knowledge and action. As National Institutes of Health's (NIH) mechanism to advance translational research, Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) awardees are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap. Delivering on this promise requires sustained collaboration and alignment between research institutions and public health and healthcare programs and services. We describe the collaboration of seven CTSA hubs with city, county, and state healthcare and public health organizations striving to realize this vision together. Partnership representatives convened monthly to identify key components, common and unique themes, and barriers in academic-public collaborations. All partnerships aligned the activities of the CTSA programs with the needs of the city/county/state partners, by sharing resources, responding to real-time policy questions and training needs, promoting best practices, and advancing community-engaged research, and dissemination and implementation science to narrow the knowledge-to-practice gap. Barriers included competing priorities, differing timelines, bureaucratic hurdles, and unstable funding. Academic-public health/health system partnerships represent a unique and underutilized model with potential to enhance community and population health

Thinking about Race: The Salience of Racial Identity at Two- and Four-Year Colleges and the Climate for Diversity

Racial identity salience is an important component of identity development that is associated with a number of educational outcomes. Using the Diverse Learning Environments Survey, this study identifies precollege and college experiences that contribute to a heightened salience of racial identity, and its relationship to perceptions of campus climate

Lehre lern(prozess)orientiert gestalten und evaluieren – eine Untersuchung von hochschuldidaktischen Fortbildungen an der University of Virginia und der Universität Bielefeld

Bach DJ, Weiß P, Inkelas KK, Riewerts K. Introducing and Assessing Learning-Focused Course Design at the University of Virginia, USA and at Bielefeld University, Germany. Die Hochschullehre: Interdisziplinäre Zeitschrift für Studium und Lehre. 2016;2:1-19.This article presents a study assessing the effectiveness of course design interventions in moving instructors from a content-focused to a learning-focused approach to teaching. It describes the basic elements of course design seminars at Bielefeld University and at the University of Virginia and the role of syllabi as instruments for communicating learning-focused principles. The authors introduce their assessment tools designed to evaluate the efficacy of the course design interventions including a reliable syllabus rubric and a syllabus toolkit. The study findings suggest that both seminars are effective in helping instructors adopt a more learning-focused approach to teaching. The concluding discussion considers the implications of the study for academic developers, including contextual factors affecting the utility of syllabi as course design tools, and suggests avenues for future research.An der Universität Bielefeld und an der University of Virginia wurden Fortbildungen entwickelt, die Lehrende dabei unterstützen, lehrbezogene Qualifikationen zu erwerben. Wir stellen eine Evaluationsstudie vor, die untersucht, inwieweit diese Fortbildungen zu einer Veränderung von einem inhaltsfokussierten hin zu einem stärker lernprozessorientierten Ansatz in der Lehre führen. Die grundlegenden Elemente der Fortbildungen werden vorgestellt mit besonderem Fokus auf der Rolle von Syllabi (schriftliche Lehrveranstaltungsprogramme) als Instrumente zur Kommunikation lernprozessorientierter Lehrprinzipien. Die von den Lehrenden im Laufe der beiden Fortbildungen verfassten Syllabi wurden hinsichtlich ihrer Lern-prozessorientierung mit einer reliablen Bewertungstabelle (rubric) und mit einem sogenannten syllabus toolkit analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass beide Fortbildungen Lehrende dabei unterstützen, ihre Lehre stärker lernprozessorientiert auszurichten. Abschließend werden die Implikationen für hochschuldidaktische Fortbildungen aufgezeigt. Dabei werden auch die spezifischen Unterschiede des amerikanischen und deutschen Hochschulsystems insbesondere hinsichtlich des Einsatzes von Syllabi im Rahmen der Lehrveranstaltungsplanung diskutiert, und es wird ein Ausblick auf zukünftige Forschungsvorhaben gegeben