The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities

Building Capacity to Improve Adult Health Care for Patients with I/DD

The goal of this project is to impart and improve the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of health care providers; leading to improved health care for adults with I/DD. The grantee will catalog existing curricula for health/allied health professionals that teach about caring for adult patients with I/DD and develop a resource list. They will lead focus groups of physicians to identify gaps in knowledge, barriers to providing care, and educational priorities. Based on their findings, they will develop and deliver two tiered-curricular-modules, each of which will be offered up to two times during the initial funding period. In total, up to four broad cohorts of practicing clinicians (Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Emergency Medicine) who provide care to adults will be trained. Each set of modules will consist of three pieces: a grand rounds presentation, a case conference presentation, and a self-advocate/family panel presentation. These training components will be implemented through mechanisms already in place in academic medical settings to maximize the ease of implementation, replicability of the model, and attendance at each session.

Building Capacity to Improve Adult Health Care for Patients with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

 With funding from the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities, The Boggs Center developed 2 tiered curricular modules to provide medical professionals with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to appropriately care for patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) in adult health care settings.

Each module contains 3 distinct curricular components:

Grand Rounds presentation – 1 hour presentation focused on improving knowledge and comfort in providing medical care for patients with I/DD

Recommended presenter: Medical Provider or other content expert with experience providing health care and/or intervention to adults with I/DD
Target audience: Adult medicine health care providers, residents, and students

 

Case conference presentation – in-depth, facilitated opportunity to discuss and work through a case example

Recommended facilitator: Medical Provider or other content expert with experience providing healthcare and/or experience teaching residents and students
Target audience: Health care residents and students

 

Panel presentation – interactive session featuring expertise from self-advocates, family members, and providers and guided by a facilitator

Recommended facilitator: Adult health care provider with experience providing care to adults with I/D
Target audience: Adult health care providers, key stakeholders

A list of relevant resources and tools for further learning is also included for each module, as well as evaluations for each component that can be distributed to learners

 

Module 1: Providing Medical Care to Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Grand Rounds

Case Conference

Panel

 

Module 2: Understanding Challenging Behavior and Sensory Needs in a Clinical Setting

Grand Rounds

Case Conference

Panel

 

Please retain the attribution to The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities with funding acknowledgment to the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities when utilizing or adapting materials. Questions about utilizing or adapting this curriculum can be directed to Dr. Carrie Coffield at carrie.coffield@rutgers.edu

Principal Investigator: Deborah M. Spitalnik, PhD
Co-Investigator: Caroline Coffield, PhD
Content Expert: Melissa Cheplic, MPH, NADD-DDS
Content Expert: Sheryl White-Scott, MD, FACP, FAAIDD
Project Staff: Susan Ellien, MSW