Palmetto Health and USC selected for national professional development program
April 7, 2016
Palmetto Health and the University of South Carolina (USC) have been chosen to take part in an innovative national learning collaborative with eight other institutions across the country.
The three- year initiative, Professionals Accelerating Clinical and Educational Redesign (PACER), will focus on bringing faculty from various disciplines together to build relationships and learn from one another as they develop and implement team-based models of care.
Faculty teams chosen to participate in PACER demonstrated an ability to embrace change and work in concert, and had already begun to redesign their training programs.
The initiative was created to address the challenges of producing a well-trained primary care workforce as the health care system moves toward the formation of high performing patient-centered medical homes in order to provide more comprehensive and better coordinated care.
“Patient-centered medical homes will be the future of primary care,” said Les Hall, M.D., executive dean of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and chief executive officer of Palmetto Health-USC Medical Group. “Our faculty members are uniquely qualified to help lead the way in this effort. We are very pleased to work with the PACER program.”
Each participating organization has created a faculty team from the three primary care disciplines in medicine as well as nursing, physician assistant, pharmacy, behavioral health and other professional training programs. Donna Ray, M.D., director of faculty development in the Office of Continuous Professional Development & Strategic Affairs, will lead the PACER initiative at Palmetto Health-USC.
The 10 member PACER Leader Team is made up of professionals and educators from several Palmetto Health departments (including Case Management, Education Development, Nursing, Pharmacy and Medical Education) and the USC School of Medicine (including the Department of Internal Medicine, the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and the Department of Pediatrics). The Leader Team will be guided throughout the initiative by a Curriculum Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished experts from the USC College of Nursing, the USC College of Pharmacy, the USC College of Social Work, the USC School of Medicine, and Palmetto Health Graduate Medical Education.
After attending training sessions and working closely with expert coaches, each of the nine PACER teams will collaborate with other primary care residencies in their region. The initiative will eventually create three regional centers to provide support, training, and resources to other primary care and health professions training programs.
“As one of the nine institutions across the U.S. chosen to participate in this program, we are pleased and honored with our selection,” said Katherine Stephens, Ph.D., vice president for medical education at Palmetto Health and associate dean for graduate medical education at University of South Carolina School of Medicine. “Our expected end result is to see greater interprofessional collaborative practice among our current and future physicians to ensure high quality and patient-centered care.”
The program is funded by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, with matching funding from the Boards of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
The first national meeting is set to take place this spring.
