I05 – Early Career Training Needs for a Workforce Pursuing Equity in Primary Care Services

Summary

The goals of most systems pursuing integrated health care include recruiting, training, and retaining primary care staff capable of delivering services that promote equity in access and outcomes for all members of a community. A national pilot of Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) services in New Zealand in 2018-2019 determined that using the PCBH approach was associated with improved health equity. This led the Ministry of Health to pursue scale up of PCBH services throughout the country. This effort involved socializing many new clinics to PCBH and hiring several hundred “Health Improvement Practitioners” or HIPs to deliver services consistent with those offered by Behavioral Health Consultants or BHCs. A variety of healthcare providers were hired to work as HIPs, including occupational therapists, mental health nurses, psychologists, social workers, and counselors. HIP training activities included approximately 30 hours of classroom study prior to placement in a clinic, followed by in-clinic competency coaching by a HIP mentor. The next phase of training included participation in 1-hour live webinars fortnightly and peer supervision groups. The webinars involved 30 minutes of HIP mentor coaching around the “wins” and “challenges” of new HIPs, and then, 30-45 minutes of instruction and discussion on a specific clinical topic. This presentation offers lessons learned from new HIP reports of “wins” and “challenges” in the early (webinars 1-3), middle (webinars 4-6), and late (webinars 7-10) phases of starting a HIP practice. Four cohorts of 10-16 new HIPs provided information. After considering the identified themes, participants will have an opportunity to work with a learning partner to reflect on their current training approach and to plan small changes they could make to enhance their efforts to develop a workforce capable of delivering primary care services promoting health equity.