An interprofessional clinical experience to address social determinants of health.

ABSTRACT: The importance of effective interprofessional communication and collaboration as a strategy to improve patient outcomes has been documented in the literature. Efforts to integrate interprofessional education have been difficult to actualize due to myriad factors in academic and clinical settings. The COVID public health emergency presented an unexpected opportunity to address the needs of an underserved community through an interprofessional clinical experience between medical and APRN students. A screening tool and resource-driven algorithm were developed and launched by students in the college of medicine, for the patients of a university hospital clinic. This initiative helped meet the needs of the community, with the value-added benefit of an interprofessional clinical experience. Using a train-the-trainer model, students were oriented to the project and an online platform for real-time collaboration. Results of this initiative were positive. Approximately 100 medical and APRN students participated and contacted 1,489 patients in the community. Medical and social needs were addressed for 681 patients, and urgent social needs were addressed for 30 people. Students gained valuable clinical experience and had opportunities to identify and address social determinants of health while collaborating with medical student counterparts.

Timeliness of provisional United States mortality data releases during the COVID-19 pandemic: delays associated with electronic death registration system and weekly mortality.

All-cause mortality counts allow public health authorities to identify populations experiencing excess deaths from pandemics, natural disasters, and other emergencies. Delays in the completeness of mortality counts may contribute to misinformation because death counts take weeks to become accurate. We estimate the timeliness of all-cause mortality releases during the COVID-19 pandemic for the dates 3 April to 5 September 2020 by estimating the number of weekly data releases of the NCHS Fluview Mortality Surveillance System until mortality comes within 99% of the counts in the 19 March 19 2021 provisional mortality data release. States' mortality counts take 5 weeks at median (interquartile range 4-7 weeks) to completion. The fastest states were Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Utah, Idaho, and Hawaii. States that had not adopted the electronic death registration system (EDRS) were 4.8 weeks slower to achieve complete mortality counts, and each weekly death per 10^8 was associated with a 0.8 week delay. Emergency planning should improve the timeliness of mortality data by improving state vital statistics digital infrastructure.