Overall Goals

Facilitate continuing clinical education, with an emphasis on primary care, for practicing local health care providers in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific jurisdictions (Federated States of Micronesia [Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei], Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam). A major focus is continuing education for graduates of the Pacific Basin Medical Officers Training Program.

Objectives

To carry out health care workforce analyses (e.g., what kinds of providers are practicing where and under what conditions, and where are there provider shortages?), conduct needs evaluation (e.g., what are the clinical areas in which providers need and want to improve competence and increase scope of practice?), and identify resources for continuing clinical education in the Pacific Basin region (e.g., medical schools, nursing schools, telecommunications infrastructure, health care leadership). Collaboratively develop practical and feasible continuing education programs for the jursidictions, develop and implement the education programs, and evaluate the effectiveness and sustainbility of the programs.

Guiding Principles

The Guiding Principles for the University of Washington PICCEP over 3-5 years are to develop and implement a program that:

• addresses stated and observed continuing clinical education (CCE) needs of health care providers in the region,
• utilizes educational interventions which have a high likelihood of increasing providers' clinical skills and thereby improving the quality of care delivered by those providers,
• helps create a sustainable CCE program that incorporates existing CCE resources of the Pacific region, is feasible within the resource constraints of UW PICCEP and the jurisdiction in which the program is being implemented, and fosters an ongoing regional infrastructure for coordinating future CCE planning and implementation, and
• initially targets the needs of physicians, including PBMOTP graduates, and later addresses the needs of other health care providers, in cooperation with ongoing local and outside CCE-related initiatives.

PICCEP Team

The University of Washington PICCEP team members have expertise in areas including providing clinical care, curriculum development, developing continuing clinical education programs for physicians, non-physician providers and community health aides, and the organization of health care delivery systems in the U.S. and in many other countries. These and other team members also have training and are involved in research related to public health, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and tele-health.

Principal Investigator

L. Gary Hart, PhD

Funding

U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
(Bureau of Primary Health Care and Bureau of Health Professions)