Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jun 5, 2024
Date Accepted: Mar 2, 2025
Providing Healthcare Professionals Education and Training to Address COVID-19 Health Disparities: Protocol for an Implementation Project Using Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) Framework
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for targeted interventions to address healthcare disparities among specific healthcare professionals and mitigate the impact of the virus. In response, we developed a comprehensive statewide educational program protocol that focuses on priority areas of health equity, cultural sensitivity, infection prevention and control (IPC), and quality improvement (QI).
Objective:
The 19-month program aims to provide healthcare professionals with the necessary education and skills to address COVID-19 disparities effectively.
Methods:
Our innovative approach combines the Extension of Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) learning model with one-on-one QI coaching. Participants engage in virtual interactive sessions led by experts and consultants, covering didactic presentations, case discussions, COVID-19 updates, and assessments. Continuing education credits are available. Participants receive support from QI and health equity coaches to develop a QI project targeting health disparities. We collect quantitative data using the RE-AIM framework, assessing credit claims, participant characteristics, participation, satisfaction, and learning competence. Additionally, semi-structured qualitative interviews capture insights into participants' application of ECHO training and the project's impact on their competence.
Results:
The expected results include demographic characteristics of health professionals enrolled in the program, retention of ECHO participants using attendance data, and baseline, midpoint, and endpoint survey data of participants' knowledge of QI, IPC, health equity, and cultural sensitivity their healthcare practice settings.
Conclusions:
The ECHO model, with its multidisciplinary approach and case-based learning, offers significant strengths in helping healthcare professionals across various settings address priority areas and tackle COVID-19 disparities. Disseminating the protocol for this novel intervention has the potential to generate additional projects that address health disparities using this educational platform.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.