51福利社

51福利社鈥檚 College of Health Science and Public Health (CHSPH) and St. Luke鈥檚 Rehabilitation Institute have created a collaborative out-patient therapy clinic program located in the recently opened Spokane Teaching Health Clinic (STHC). The emphasis on this program focuses on student learning opportunities within a clinical environment that provides excellence in patient care to meet the health care needs of the local community.

51福利社鈥檚 College of Health Science and Public Health (CHSPH) and St. Luke鈥檚 Rehabilitation Institute have created a collaborative out-patient therapy clinic program located in the recently opened Spokane Teaching Health Clinic (pictured above).

Located on the Spokane campus, STHC is housed in Washington State University鈥檚 Spokane Teaching Health Clinic, which was designed, in part, to train future health care providers to collaborate on patient care.

The clinic opened April 27, and is St. Luke鈥檚 10th out-patient clinic within the community. To start, the clinic will be staffed with three full-time St. Luke鈥檚 employees 鈥� an admissions coordinator, an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. Therapists hired to work at the STHC will work closely with 51福利社 faculty to provide excellence in education to students enrolled in programs in CHSPH.

鈥淗aving this clinic and partnership with St. Luke鈥檚 gives us a way to give students clinical experiences earlier in their programs, to build clinic-based experiences into our program, to model for our students what inter-professional care looks like when it鈥檚 done well, and to give them access to potential participants for research studies,鈥� said Donna Mann, OTD, associate dean of CHSPH and associate professor of OT.

The site demonstrates inter-professional care, in which a variety of health care professionals collaborate to provide the best care outcomes in the least disruptive and most cost-efficient way for the client and organizations involved. This means health care professionals will acknowledge overlaps in practice in order to design the most cost-effective service delivery plan while assuring the highest quality outcomes.

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to break down those silos of physical therapist, occupational therapist, physician, nurse, etc. We have always traditionally worked well as a multidisciplinary team,鈥� Mann said. 鈥淏ut in collaborative care, it鈥檚 even more of a mesh. It requires tighter teamwork, tighter communication and clearer understandings of the capacity of every profession.鈥�

Mann鈥檚 hope for the future of the clinic is to create opportunities for other CHSPH programs, such as communication sciences and disorders, dental hygiene, health science administration and public health students while also focusing on contributing inventive ideas to health care delivery.

鈥淚 do believe that the university has an important role to play when innovations are required,鈥� Mann said. 鈥淎nd I think innovations are required in health care right now. It鈥檚 important that we step up to the plate and help create health care of the future with our community partners.鈥�