Introduction: Research on disparities in health and health care has demonstrated that social, economic, and political factors are key drivers of poor health outcomes. Yet the role of such structural forces on health and health care has been incorporated unevenly into medical training. The framework of structural competency offers a paradigm for training health professionals to recognize and respond to the impact of upstream, structural factors on patient health and health care. Methods: We report on a brief, interprofessional structural competency curriculum implemented in 32 distinct instances between 2015 and 2017 throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In consultation with medical and interprofessional education experts, we developed open-ended, written-response surveys to qualitatively evaluate this curriculum's impact on participants. Qualitative data from 15 iterations were analyzed via directed thematic analysis, coding language, and concepts to identify key themes. Results: Three core themes emerged from analysis of participants' comments. First, participants valued the curriculum's focus on the application of the structural competency framework in real-world clinical, community, and policy contexts. Second, participants with clinical experience (residents, fellows, and faculty) reported that the curriculum helped them reframe how they thought about patients. Third, participants reported feeling reconnected to their original motivations for entering the health professions. Discussion: This structural competency curriculum fills a gap in health professional education by equipping learners to understand and respond to the role that social, economic, and political structural factors play in patient and community health.
Often dubbed the fourth trimester, the first 6 weeks of the postpartum period is a critical time that sets the stage for future health outcomes for both women and children. Leading maternal and child health advocates agree that intervention in the first 6 weeks of life is crucial. Although most new parents prioritize their newborn's well‐care, many postpartum patients do not attend appointments for themselves, missing critical opportunities for identification and treatment of leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality. Racial disparities in rates of postpartum complications highlight the increased importance of close postpartum follow‐up for women of color. Barriers to attending routine postpartum visits were exacerbated by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. Additionally, in traditional models of care, maternal‐infant dyads experience fragmented care across multiple departments and patient care settings and only 1 to 2 routine visits for the postpartum patient. To address the challenges of providing in‐person postpartum care during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Boston, the Midwifery Service, and the Pediatrics Department of Boston Medical Center partnered to launch a mobile postpartum clinic that provided comprehensive, high‐touch, dyadic care to postpartum patients and newborns in the first 6 weeks of life. Integrative mobile visits catered to the interplay of maternal and newborn health in the early postpartum period, providing an average of 3 visits to each dyad. This novel clinic concept addresses structural inequities by decreasing barriers to care and reimagines an ideal state of postpartum dyadic care with frequent visits addressing the complete needs of each postpartum patient and newborn. For more than 2 decades, maternal health advocates have been calling for change from health care birth systems to improve health care outcomes. This collaborative, interdepartmental initiative—conceived in the context of a pandemic—is an answer to that call.
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