Assessing population health education in an academic medical center through a mixed methods quality improvement project

Academic medical centers are increasingly adding population health concepts into clinical education and practice. However, initiatives to integrate population health and clinical practice can be challenging. This paper summarizes the initial steps to improve population health education with medical learners at The College of Community Health Sciences at The University of Alabama. First, a population health training needs analysis survey was conducted with Family Medicine residents and licensed healthcare providers that assessed their confidence in performing 30 population health competencies and relevance of these competencies to their clinical practice. Next, this data was presented to Community Medicine and Population Health faculty, who are mostly non-clinical, to discuss gaps in population health competencies and to identify potential solutions to close the competency gaps. These faculty shared barriers to offering population health training to clinical learners included a lack of shared understanding and value of the field with clinical faculty, and lack of access to clinical data that can inform population health initiatives. Potential solutions included increasing community engagement, enhancing health informatics efforts, and fostering collaboration between clinical and population health faculty. The next steps for this project are to hold individual discussions with academic leadership about how clinical learners, clinical faculty, and non-clinical faculty can move towards greater collaboration with each other and the patients we serve. These discussions will help clarify the infrastructure and support systems needed to better serve our clinical learners and community through the implementation of population health strategies.