CP4 - Near North Quality Improvement Program: IPV Education, Awareness, and Resources

Poster Type: Innovation

Category: A. T. Still University; Quality of Care and Quality Improvement

Issue or Challenge: Intimate partner violence is a widely prevalent issue and most significantly impacts women, especially in the city of Chicago. The health consequences of IPV are significant including chronic pain disorders, IBS, sexually transmitted infections, infertility, depression and anxiety, maternal mortality, suicide, and homicide. Despite this, a previous project at Near North Health found that there is minimal screening by their providers. The goal of this project is to increase the identification of patients experiencing IPV.

Description of Innovation: Colloquially, innovation implies newness–new technology, methods, or ideas. However, innovation in qualitative research can mean improvement of methods that have already been established. The goal of this experiment was the latter. Through the survey conducted by 10 A.T Still University students, Class of 2022, it was established that physicians at Near North Community Health Center (NNCHC) were not comfortable screening patients for IPV. We decided to address this issue through IPV education seminars to increase physicians' knowledge on IPV. This seminar explained risk factors, and equipped providers with tools and resources that they can provide to their IPV positive patients. Other resources are business cards that providers can give to patients containing IPV related information and resources. In addition, posters with information regarding IPV and a QR code for an IPV safety planning app will be posted in bathroom stalls of the clinic in an effort to increase patients’ comfortability in starting a conversation about IPV with their physicians. Through provider education, business cards, and posters, we aim to increase provider’s comfortability to screen patients for IPV at Near North Health Center.

Impact or Result: Our team created a training presentation to succinctly educate our providers on the current issues regarding IPV and how to best screen for IPV among their patients. We had six women’s health providers attend the training and complete pre- and post-training surveys. Our providers were asked to rate their knowledge of resources available for patients experiencing IPV prior to training (1-5) and subsequently asked the same question after training. We observed a positive trend regarding knowledge of resources, from an average of 2.67 prior to training to 4 after training. We also obtained important information regarding barriers to IPV screening. Multiple providers indicated that lack of time to screen patients as well as lack of time to discuss a positive IPV screen were seen as barriers to screen.

Replicating this Innovation: The importance of replicating this quality improvement project in other organizations cannot be understated. The educational presentation was created to educate women’s health providers at Near North Health Services on multiple aspects of IPV and improve provider comfortability in screening for IPV. Importantly, the educational presentation produced was succinct and straight forward. Moreover, while this program specifically focused on educating women’s health providers at one community health clinic, the content of the presentation - and the online format - lends itself to being easily accessible to multiple audiences.

Author(s):

Michael Dinh, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Grace Chen, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Ryan Abbott, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Trina Bhattarai, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Tanya Omar, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Donald Saylor, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Caroline DiNicola, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Clara Choi, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Daniel Muller, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Grace Narlock, OMS-II, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Michael Dinh

OMSII, A.T Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona

Appearances