Ameanthea Blanco-Knezovich and Jessica Parrott
South University, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Primary Health Care
Innovative Advanced Practice Nursing Education (IAPNE) that promotes and instills interprofessional education and eollaborative practice utilizing mobile medical health clinics is an educational and healthcare delivery model with a two-fold purpose of creating a built, yet flexible environment, that promotes, fosters and extends interprofessional collaborative practice for service agencies, while improving the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) for underserved populations. This innovative practice is a system transforming model that achieves the World Health Organization�s (WHO) call for interprofessional education and collaborative practice and the United States� Healthy People 2020 objective of increase in self-reported better physical and mental health for the adult population. This practice model of IAPNE utilizes HRQOL initiatives that encompass physical, mental, emotional and social functioning. These four areas are addressed through a Mobile Medical Health Clinic (MMHC) that includes the interprofessional education and collaboration of nurse practitioners, baccalaureate prepared nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, chiropractors, health managers, social work, mental health providers, barber/beauticians and spiritual guides. This delivery model works to improves access and coordination of health-services for vulnerable populations while decreasing tension among service agencies. The setting of the MMHC further works to increase patient and practitioner satisfaction, promote greater acceptance of treatment, reduce health-care cost and improve mental and emotional health. The culture shift that has been created by IAPNE has provided students of service agencies with an understanding and consideration of vulnerable, underserved populations and instilled the necessity of interprofessional collaboration with the professional obligation to support communities for which they serve.
Ameanthea Blanco-Knezovich has completed her Doctorate from Old Dominion University in 2010. She has been a Family Nurse Practitioner for 13 years and Nurse Educator for two years. She has been Medical Director and Senior Clinician for multiple clinics and developed protocols for daily clinic operations. She is currently a Faculty at South University for the Family Nurse Practitioner Program and Executive Director for Promethean Group.
Email:cablanco-knezovich@southuniversity.edu
