Presented By: Ling Cao, University of New England
Co-Authors: Kin Ly, University of New England

Purpose
Interprofessional and multidisciplinary collaborations are critical for providing comprehensive and efficient care to patients, especially for those with chronic illnesses, which highlights the importance of interprofessional education (IPE) for all health professions students. With the increased awareness of how social determinants of health (SDOH) can affect a patient's health, we designed a new virtual IPE program that aimed to introduce the public health problem solving paradigm (Guyer 1998) to health professions students. By adapting this paradigm in patient-centered care, the program guided students through the process of patient information review, root-cause analysis, and intervention development. This abstract describes the program and the early outcomes. 

Methods
The program was piloted in AY 2022-23 with 28 students from various health professions (osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, dental, nursing, and applied nutrition dietetics) and public health major forming 7 teams. Each team generated a patient case using their clinical experiences and provided resources and created a patient-centered framework that incorporated patient's medical conditions, socioeconomic status, and community and environmental factors. Students then used the framework to design potential interventions to improve the overall health of their patients. 

Results 
Students collectively showed significant improvement in the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale (ISVS-21) that measures students' potential abilities to function in an interprofessional team (pre 84.7±17.9 vs. post 102.6±19.1), and in the perceived competencies in recognizing the impact of SDOH to patient health and identifying resources to overcome the consequent health care challenges (pre 18.9±6.0 vs. post 27.9±5.7). Students agreed that the program achieved its learning objectives (4.5±0.60 out of 5) and improved their skills in taking socioeconomic context into considerations when developing interventions. 

Conclusion 
The results demonstrated the early success of the program, which has encouraged us to continue the program and more in-depth evaluation will be conducted in the future.