Building Capacity for Collective Action to Address Population Health Improvement Through Communities of Practice: A Distance-Based Education Pilot

Abstract

Background and Introduction In 2012, the Institute of Medicine recommended increased integration of primary care and public health as a key strategy to facilitate population health improvement. Improving population health in sustainable ways is complex, requiring comprehensive clinical and preventative strategies at the individual, organizational, community, and system levels (Auerbach, 2016; Frieden, Dietz, & Collins, 2010; Golden & Earp, 2012). While public health agencies have a long history using collaborative approaches to improve the public's health (Israel, Schulz, Parker, & Becker, 1998; Roussos & Fawcett, 2000), beyond community health centers, partnering more broadly with primary care entities is relatively rare for public health. Likewise, common definitions of success that demonstrate population health improvement outside of community-oriented primary care are not well developed (Michener, Koo, Castrucci, & Sprague, 2015). Recommended approaches to accelerating primary care and public health partnerships include increasing the knowledge and skills of both workforces about their respective approaches to population health while creating opportunities for focused integration strategies (Association 697065P HPXXX10.

Identifying Barriers to Collaboration Between Primary Care and Public Health: Experiences at the Local Level

“…Although a lack of awareness of each other caused difficulty for this group of participants, it suggests that a long-term investment in shared training and a commitment to raising awareness of each other could help address this barrier. Several attempts to engage in shared learning (eg, distance learning) have been successful, 16 showing promise for finding ways to address this barrier to collaboration. That learning could be extended to help both fields identify and overcome common barriers.…”

“…14 However, public health workers and primary care providers have expressed interest in broadening the ways in which primary care and public health come together to address a wide range of topics 15 and develop shared skills and strategies for advancing partnerships. 16…”

“…14 However, public health workers and primary care providers have expressed interest in broadening the ways in which primary care and public health come together to address a wide range of topics 15 and develop shared skills and strategies for advancing partnerships. 16 Institutional factors, such as having a shared mission and vision, along with an alignment of goals and objectives, are valuable for collaboration. [17][18][19][20] Key processes are important, such as having a clear, established partnership that is sustainable and implementing strategies to evaluate the partnership or the activities of the partnership.…”

Health promotion education in changing and challenging times: Reflections from England

“…More generally, the knowledge, attitudes and skills taught need to be revisited in order to be able to respond to contemporary challenges. The importance of health education and health promotion learning is central to tackling the many challenges observed, as it underpins workforce development (Welter et al, 2017) which can in turn serve to improve population health (Koh, 2010).…”

The Role of the U.S. Public Health Learning Network in Strengthening the Current and Future Public Health Workforce

“…Welter, Jacobs, Jarpe-Ratner, Naji, and Gruss (2017) describe how the Great Lakes PHTC used an Action Learning process to explore ways in which Communities of Practice can facilitate the integration of primary care and public health and serve as a mechanism to promote ongoing learning toward population health improvement. They also express how findings of this process will be used to enhance current and future programming in the region.…”