Presented By: Susan DeRiemer, Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine

Purpose 
One of the challenges to a patient-centered model of healthcare is the siloing of care amongst specialties. A similar challenge occurs in health systems science curricular design. This abstract describes the strategies used to integrate the multiple threads of health systems science into an interprofessional training activity and their effectiveness.

Methods 
The basic structure of an annual interprofessional training in geriatrics was modified over several cycles to explicitly incorporate the major elements of the health systems science framework. The participants represented 10 graduate training programs at 7 institutions. An initial assessment of the health systems science content was used to develop focused integration and enhancement of health systems science coverage. This was accomplished by adding targeted information into the case studies and modifying the reporting instruments the teams were asked to complete. Case reports and responses to post-event surveys were used to evaluate the impact of the modifications on self-assessment of competencies in health systems science domains as well as incorporation of health systems science-related content into team-generated care plans.

Results 
While baseline cases included elements of health systems science components including patient-centeredness, teaming, population, public and social determinants of health and value, it was possible to increase the number and depth of health systems science topics. The most significant gain was in health care policy and economics obtained by inclusion of specific Medicare plan information for the patients. Modifications of the care plan template led to increased attention paid to healthcare structure, value and economics.

Conclusions
Interprofessional practice (Teaming) is one of the key elements of health systems science, but it can also be a vehicle for integrating the remaining core and cross-cutting domains in a way that emphasizes both patient-centeredness and systems thinking. A similar approach can be applied to increase integration in other health systems science learning activities.