Each year at the National Academies of Practice (NAP) Annual Induction Banquet, NAP bestows awards to truly deserving candidates who are nominated by their peers.  This year’s awards were presented on March 5, 2022 at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay at a black tie gala.

The Creativity in Practice & Education Award was established to recognize and encourage interprofessional programs, projects, and models which focus on the improvement of health care.  This year’s award went to Thomas Jefferson University’s Complex Care Curriculum – 3Cs.

To creatively address patients with complex health and social needs, which comprise roughly 5% of the patient population and account for 50% of the costs, the Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education at TJU launched the 3Cs in the Fall of 2020. This longitudinal curriculum draws upon best practices from existing complex care clinical models. The 3Cs builds on and integrates existing interprofessional programs at JCIPE, including the Health Mentors Program and Student Hotspotting, to create one innovative, cohesive continuum which incrementally builds competencies in collaborative practice and complex care.

A key aim for the 3Cs is to enable students to develop competency in interprofessional collaborative practice based on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative core competencies. The 3Cs tracks impact on patient and healthcare system outcomes.

The National Academies of Practice Interprofessional Group Recognition award is bestowed upon a group who has made enduring contributions to interprofessional practice and education.  This year’s winner was the University at Buffalo’s Interprofessional Education Leadership Team.

This outstanding team of talented faculty is dedicated to the advancement of interprofessional collaborative practice and education. The UB IPE Program currently serves over 2,500 students in 15 health professions programs.  

Students are taught to move out of their professional silos with introductory, exposure level, immersion level, and competency IPE learning experiences. The team has used innovative instructional design strategies to develop, implement, and assess unique experiential learning activities that span the classroom to the community and healthcare settings. The UB IPE Leadership Team has also shown time and again their commitment to the advancement of IPE and IPCP through their research, including their peer-reviewed publications and presentations.

The National Academies of Practice Patient Advocacy Award recognizes a patient or care partner whose lived experience transformed them, and they in turn are transforming healthcare to enhance the well-being of others. This year’s award was presented to Dr. Anita Gupta.

Gupta is an accomplished physician and brings an international voice for stakeholders including patients, physicians, policymakers, and non-profit organizations. She emphasizes that doctors need to take a step back and look at situations through the eyes of the patient. 

Gupta brings her own perspective from her personal patient journey as a rare disease survivor and uses it as a positive platform to improve both health systems and the patient journey. The rare disease community is fortunate to have a physician so dedicated to creating a “voice” for patients by leading the way with her own example and being actively involved in initiatives that leverage patient advocates, industry and the healthcare community.

NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF PRACTICE WELCOMES ATHLETIC TRAINING ACADEMY

The National Academies of Practice held their 2021 Virtual Forum on March 18-20 and as part of this momentous 40^th anniversary event, welcomed their newest academy – The Athletic Training Academy.

After nearly two years of significant focused work and deliberate preparation, the organization’s leadership unanimously approved Athletic Training as the newest academy to join the National Academies of Practice. Ten new Founding Distinguished Fellows and Professional Members were inducted into the National Academies of Practice during Saturday’s Induction and Awards Ceremony. Anthony Breitbach, PhD, ATC, FASAHP, FNAP will serve as the Chair of the Athletic Training Academy and Aaron Sciascia, PhD, ATC, PES, SMTC, FNAP will serve as Vice Chair.

The process to apply to become a National Academies of Practice academy requires submitting detailed information on how a specific profession meets the following criteria:

• Demonstrates evidence of being a collaborative profession
• Enables professionals to make decisions independently that affect the health and/or well-being of individuals and/or communities
• Has a Code of Ethics for the profession
• Has a defined minimum level of professional education
• Utilizes a recognized accreditation process to establish and maintain high educational standards for the profession
• Uses an established process of licensing, registration, or certification to ensure its colleagues are qualified and in good standing in their profession
• Professionally disseminates peer reviewed scholarly activity

To ensure momentum for the new academy, the National Academies of Practice also asks how the new academy could contribute to the advancement of the organization’s vision to lead and exemplify interprofessional healthcare that promotes and preserves health and well-being.

The story of the athletic trainers’ journey and the steps taken to apply for and be recognized as a new academy was featured in the organization’s Societal Pages in the January 2021 issue of the Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice.

The National Academies of Practice proudly welcomes the Athletic Training Academy and its Distinguished Fellows and Professional members and looks forward to learning more about the profession and its integral role and responsibilities within the interprofessional healthcare team.  

NAP believes that healthcare practice with an interprofessional foundation focused on the whole person is essential for effectively addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and other similarly complex and multisystem conditions that necessitate coordinated and comprehensive delivery of interprofessional collaborative care from multiple professions.

Many professional associations have requested telehealth provisions be included among acceptable and clinically appropriate services to facilitate truly patient-centered care (see addendum for a list of professional associations representative of the NAP membership). To provide quality interprofessional collaborative care during the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth services have been expanded for a number of professions, with positive outcomes. National advocacy organizations, such as the National Association for the Support of Long Term Care (NASL) and the National Association of Rehabilitation Providers and Agencies (NARA), have partnered with professional associations to advance the appropriate use of telehealth in an effort to assure universal access to health care.

Policies and Regulatory Revisions directing the types of providers eligible to provide telehealth services and the circumstances under which those apply affects all of the professions represented in NAP. Read our full position statement here.

NAP has published a Commitment Statement on Equal and Safe Access to Health Care and Individual Health and Well-Being. NAP is committed to do our part to end injustices and advocate for equal and safe access to health care, individual health, and well-being, and delivering person-centered evidence-based care through an interprofessional approach. 

Read our full statement here.

NAP submitted comments and recommended edits to the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on their definition of "Omissions of Care."  View the letter and comments here.

As a key stakeholder to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), NAP had an opportunity to provide public comments to the ONC and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the 21st Century Cures Act: Interoperability, Information Blocking, and the ONC Health IT Certification Program.

View our comments to ONC here.

View our comments to CMS here.

NAP submitted comments to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and Electronic Health Records (EHRs).

View the comments here.