Impact of an Interprofessional Teaching Clinic on Preventive Care Services

Recent legislative and regulatory initiatives have emphasized preventive medicine and team-based health care delivery and education. Influenced by these initiatives, the investigators created an interprofessional teaching clinic to provide preventive care services (PCS) structured around Medicare's Annual Wellness Visit (AWV). The primary objective of this pilot study was to determine if PCS status improved for participating patients.

AWV-naïve Medicare beneficiaries aged 66--74 years were recruited for the interprofessional teaching clinic, which involved physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. Patients were screened for 11 PCS variables, underwent medication review, and received recommendations to address identified PCS deficiencies prior to completing a satisfaction survey. Follow-up telephone visits were completed to determine recommendation outcomes and final PCS status for each variable. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize patients, the medication review, PCS status, and satisfaction scores. McNemar tests were used to assess the PCS status of patients before and after participation, and Fisher's Exact tests were used to compare baseline PCS status between the pilot cohort and a comparator group.

Thirty-four patients were enrolled in the pilot intervention, and one patient was lost to follow-up. Ninety-one percent (10/11) of PCS variables improved following participation. Significant improvements were observed for pneumococcal vaccination, mammography screening, fecal occult blood testing, and bone mineral density scanning. Patient satisfaction was high (mean scores for all items ?4.7).

This interprofessional teaching clinic provides a promising mechanism to improve patients' PCS status, medication utilization, and satisfaction while training students to function effectively as a team.