The role of academic health centers in addressing social responsibility

Abstract

Despite the many successes achieved by academic health centers and the significant attention paid to the importance of the impact of social determinants on health, a broader movement of the academic health center community to share best practices and standardize these efforts across institutions and communities has not taken hold. The "guild mentality" of the health professions, the existing university/academic health center structure, regulation and accreditation, and misaligned incentives in the health care system all inhibit the development of this movement. In this article, we propose a new model for how the academic health center community might better address the social determinants of health.

Preparing Today’s Nurses: Social Determinants of Health and Nursing Education

“…This effort has led to numerous online educational resources for students and health professionals to learn how to reach national health goals (HHS, 2016d). Another U.S.-based initiative is working through the Association of Academic Health Centers to raise awareness and build partnerships for a more coordinated response to addressing the social determinants of health (AAHC, 2015;Wartman, 2010;Wartman and Steinberg, 2011).…”

Responsabilité sociale des facultés de médecine francophones : organisation, résultats et leçons apprises du projet de recherche-action international des facultés de médecine francophones

“…Nos résultats suggèrent que la formation des étudiants en médecine doit aujourd'hui mettre plus l'accent sur la responsabilité sociale et que les curricula doivent incorporer les principes de RS. Il faut non seulement réviser le contenu des programmes, mais aussi l'approche éducationnelle professionnalisante [15] . Plus de recherches sont nécessaires, y compris le développement de méthodes d'évaluation reflétant les valeurs qui sous-tendent la responsabilité sociale, afin que les exigences dans ce domaine soient évaluées objectivement, reproductibles dans différents contextes populationnels ou communautaires, efficientes et transparentes.…”

Evaluating a masters of medical education program: Attaining minimum quality standards?

“…Included in the range of future outcomes should be graduate destinations, completions and attrition rates. Furthermore, quality standards demand not only that claims be made about achievements, but also demand sharing best practices across institutions (Wartman & Steinberg 2011), ideally leading to benchmarking standards against best local and international norms. Benchmarking is an increasingly popular tool for self-evaluation and self-improvement, enabling institutions to monitor and compare quality with that of other institutions with similar characteristics (Henderson-Smart et al 2006).…”