THE VIRTUAL COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER: CLINICAL PRACTICE IN A VIRTUAL WORLD
The Virtual Community Health Center (VCHC) is an engaging, web-based training program that provides simulated clinical experiences for medical students and residents bound for practice in modern community health and primary care environments. The VCHC offers online case studies targeting different topics and populations.
THE VCHC PROJECT
Leaders of change are those who can envision the future and espouse the integrity to make the strides required for the greater good of all.
Make a Difference in Each Patient's Life
Envision Community Health Center
Quality, efficacy and efficiency have been clearly documented to be drivers of solving this nation’s healthcare shortage within primary care. Through the training of the next generation of healthcare professionals to practice in today’s environment of interprofessional collaborative community-oriented primary care, we can change the rising tide of underserved and help solve this nation’s healthcare shortage.
Trainees access the Envision Community Health Center™ online, receive clinical assignments from a virtual preceptor, and meet with a diverse set of under-represented patients, each with an authentic electronic health record and a unique backstory. Trainees learn to manage each part of the patient encounter, receiving immediate feedback along the way. Cases address seven important aspects of care that are currently not fully integrated into other virtual patient case scenarios: 1) the community health center setting; 2) family connections within the patient stories; 3) healthcare team members; 4) the clinical presentation approach; 5) Electronic health record; 6) social determinants and community health considerations; and 7) osteopathic principles.
Hometown Community Health Center
This suite of stories relate to health systems science and collaborative practice in the context of community-oriented primary care. Trainees explore current community healthcare topics such as opioid disorder, or care practice in rural healthcare settings. These clinical scenarios are designed for upper class medical students or family medicine residents, who train in contexts associated with community health.
Patient Safety Scenarios
Learning to Speak Up is a suite of gamified clinic scenarios, emphasizing principles of collaboration and patient safety in the domains of ethics, values, and communication. The scenarios also infuse the sub-theme of patient safety. Patient safety is an important goal associated with collaborative practice. Healthcare trainees learn how to efficiently and respectfully speak up in situations that could lead to errors related to patient safety.