Assistant professor is the principal investigator on a project awarded the George E. Thibault, MD Nexus Award by the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education
Gina Rowe, PhD, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, PHCNS-BC, CNE, assistant professor, is the principal investigator on a project awarded the George E. Thibault, MD Nexus Award by the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education. The award recognizes the work of the University of Maryland Interprofessional Team Care Clinics in Montgomery County, Maryland.
The Thibault Nexus Award celebrates exemplary interprofessional collaboration in the United States and those who are thinking and acting differently where practice and education connect in health systems.
The simultaneous transformation of the health system and education requires leadership in both large systems and local innovation of all types and at all levels. Focused innovative programs can have profound ripple effects in systems, as can visionary large multi-system initiatives. The lessons from both are needed and important. The National Center seeks to identify and recognize partnerships that are moving the needle in interprofessional practice and education within and across organizations.
The Thibault Nexus Award is awarded annually to an exemplary model of a “Nexus” partnership between practice and education for improved patient and community outcomes.
The University of Maryland Interprofessional Team Clinic project, established in 2014 between University of Maryland, Baltimore; the Holy Cross Health Network; and Mercy Health Clinic, was selected as an awardee of the Accelerating Interprofessional Community-Based Education and Practice initiative, for which Rowe serves as principal investigator. Through this supportive developmental program, the Interprofessional Team Care Clinic model was replicated to two additional clinics.
Students from the Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Work see underserved, complex medical patients as a team to provide medication, nutrition, and chronic disease education, medical management, psychosocial triage, and assistance with access to community resources, Rowe says.
The Interprofessional Team Care Clinics have shown clinically meaningful improvements in patient outcomes (hemoglobin A1C levels, blood pressure, and lipid panels) and in learning and attitude outcomes among the more than 130 students participating in the three clinic sites.
Watch a video in which Rowe (along with other members of the interprofessional faculty team) shares keys for success, along with more details on the clinics’ innovative responses to COVID-19.