The strategy aims to transform a hospital-based university curriculum into one that emphasizes social accountability and community-based training. This involves shifting the focus from clinical settings in hospitals to engaging with communities directly. One approach is to engage stakeholders such as faculty, students, and community leaders to gather insights and foster collaboration. For example, organizing workshops and establishing a diverse steering committee can ensure broad participation and buy-in.
Integrating community health needs into the curriculum is another core component. This includes reviewing the existing curriculum to identify gaps and incorporating modules on social determinants of health. Inviting community health experts and incorporating service-learning projects can enhance real-world understanding. Lastly, transitioning clinical training into community settings involves developing partnerships with community clinics and creating new assessment tools. Emphasizing interprofessional education and providing students with community outreach opportunities can strengthen their clinical skills in diverse settings.
The strategies
⛳️ Strategy 1: Engage stakeholders for curriculum transformation
- Identify key stakeholders including faculty, students, community leaders, and health professionals
- Conduct focus groups to gather input on curriculum needs and community health priorities
- Organise workshops to foster collaboration and buy-in from all stakeholders
- Establish a steering committee with diverse representation to oversee the transformation process
- Facilitate regular meetings to update stakeholders on progress and gather continuous feedback
- Create a communication plan to ensure transparency throughout the transformation process
- Develop partnerships with local community organisations and health care providers
- Identify champions within the institution to advocate for change
- Collaborate with other universities that have successfully implemented similar curriculums
- Ensure the involvement of students in the planning and implementation phases to gain their insights
⛳️ Strategy 2: Integrate community health needs and primary care into curriculum
- Review existing curriculum to identify gaps in community health and primary care education
- Incorporate modules that focus on social determinants of health and health disparities
- Develop new courses that highlight the importance of primary care and community health services
- Invite community health experts to contribute to the curriculum design
- Implement problem-based learning scenarios situated in community settings
- Incorporate service-learning projects that require student engagement with the community
- Design assessment tools to evaluate student understanding of community health and primary care
- Ensure curriculum alignments with global standards such as WHO guidelines and the SDGs
- Encourage faculty development programs to prepare educators for the new curriculum focus
- Regularly review and update the curriculum to reflect new health challenges and innovations in community care
⛳️ Strategy 3: Transition clinical training from hospital-centric to community-based settings
- Identify suitable community clinics and health centres for student placements
- Develop memorandums of understanding with community-based organisations to formalise training partnerships
- Create a community-based clinical training schedule for students
- Support faculty in redesigning clinical training sessions that emphasise community health
- Introduce simulation-based learning that reflects community-based scenarios
- Provide students with opportunities to engage in community health outreach programs
- Ensure clinical educators provide feedback on student competency in community settings
- Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of community-based training regularly
- Incorporate interprofessional education by having students collaborate with different health professionals during their training
- Adapt training modules to prepare students for challenges specific to community-based practice
Bringing accountability to your strategy
It's one thing to have a plan, it's another to stick to it. We hope that the examples above will help you get started with your own strategy, but we also know that it's easy to get lost in the day-to-day effort.
That's why we built Tability: to help you track your progress, keep your team aligned, and make sure you're always moving in the right direction.
Give it a try and see how it can help you bring accountability to your strategy.
