UUHSC 6501 - Interprofessional Student Hotspotting II

The eight-month interprofessional student hotspotting elective course places medical students on a team including, but not limited to, dentistry, health, nursing, pharmacy, and undergraduate students. As a member of the hotspotting team, the medical student will participate in a kick-off event introducing the key concepts of hotspotting. The medical student will then identify 1 to 2 patients with complex health and social needs who are high utilizers of health care resources as determined by review of emergency department and hospital utilization as well as health care costs. The medical student will be required to participate in an online curriculum, developed by the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, that reinforces the concepts introduced during the kick-off meeting. Subsequently, the medical student will conduct home visits and also accompany patients during health care encounters such as outpatient visits. The medical student will meet regularly with his or her hotspotting team, and he or she will also meet regularly with a faculty advisor who may represent one of the disciplines identified above. By serving a navigating function for high-utilizing patients, medical students on hotspotting teams will identify those social determinants of health (such as unemployment, prior traumas, food insecurity, and lack of transportation) contributing to high healthcare utilization. The medical student will submit written reflections on his or her interactions with hotspotting patients and also create a written action plan to link his or her hotspotting patient(s) to resources to address the pertinent social determinants of health. Finally, the medical student will attend a wrap-up event in which he or she will have an opportunity to share learning from the hotspotting experience and also learn from other hotspotting teams’ experiences.