A team of GW faculty led by Professor Christine Pintz, with funding from a four-year, $2.8 million Health Resources & Services Administration grant, will be educating nurse practitioner (NP) students to better care for underserved communities in both rural and urban areas.
The Nurse Practitioner Technology Enhanced Community Health program will educate NP students on social determinants of health and population-based care, and also how to use telehealth capabilities to facilitate patient engagement and monitoring. Once equipped with these skills, NPs will be better able to provide high-quality care to patients in underserved communities who might have chronic health issues or lack access to care.
In addition to Dr. Pintz, a number of GW faculty members are working on this program:
- Laurie Posey, Ed.D., GW Nursing
- Neal Sikka, M.D., Medical Faculty Associates
- Sandra Davis, Ph.D., GW Nursing
- Tony Yang, Sc.D., LLC, GW Nursing
- Sherrie Wallington, Ph.D., GW Nursing
- Karen Lewis, Ph.D., GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences
The program’s five-part plan starts with enhancing existing academic-practice partnerships and establishing a new rural partnership. The team will also develop and implement an experiential Technology Enhanced Community Health (TECH) curriculum for the program’s scholars. A network of preceptors will be trained, supported and compensated as program partners to enhance the education of 64 NP-TECH scholars who will receive traineeship funds to participate in the educational and clinical experiences focused on underserved populations. Finally, the program aims to support participants’ transitions to practice and connect them with employment opportunities as primary care providers in underserved communities.