Background
The Emergency Department (ED) has been called the nation's safety net for healthcare. Every year there are over 100 million ED visits and roughly 16 million of these patients do not have medical insurance. Many of these visits are for what are considered primary health concerns. A department for "emergencies" traditionally does not provide preventive healthcare information, in spite of being the only interaction many people have with the healthcare system. Medical students do not have many opportunities, especially in the pre-clinical years, to work directly with patients on preventive healthcare issues. This program opens the door for them, where the need is great, and as of yet, greatly unmet.
Objectives
For medical students to provide basic information and 5-10 minutes of individual counseling on preventive healthcare topics. To supply all patients, regardless of race, sex, or financial status, with information about local agencies and contact numbers that they can take home with them and share with others.
To show students the importance of preventive healthcare and to become familiar with the agencies in the community so that they can refer people to these agencies during their clinical rotations.To allow this program to be reproduced at other schools. All of the information needed to start this program is located here. This includes sample handouts for patients, daily logs to keep track of volunteer hours, and a PowerPoint presentation for volunteer student training. There is a step-by-step guide on how to get the program started, and even a sample script students can go by to get an idea of what the typical patient encounter might be like.To provide research in preventive health and Emergency Medicine.Basics
This program will require 1-2 students willing to do the initial work in ensuring that this program is applicable for their ED, to receive approval from the ED director, to create the information which will be distributed to patients, to work with local agencies, and to recruit and train students. Once again, all the information is located under the Documents section, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Any medical student interested in getting involved with the Get PHED Up!! Program should contact Lisa Cowan at LRC0409@mail.ecu.edu.
