CHS 350 - Community Health: From Theory to Practice

3 Credit Hours

Offered in collaboration with practitioners from Florida Hospital, this course provides an academic foundation for expected subsequent one-year Health Coach Practicum I and II experiences with Florida Hospital. The course explores key issues concerning community health care aimed at developing practical approaches to supporting patients. Students consider obstacles to effective health care as well as strategies for enabling at-risk patients to play more active roles in promoting their health and well-being. Topics include: challenges of delivering adequate health care in communities; population medicine; specific problems posed by diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease; ethical dimensions of the concept of “underinsurance”; community medicine and the law; and methods of improving compliance and measuring outcomes. Conducted as a seminar, this first semester provides students with the academic foundation for the required subsequent Health Coach Practicum with Florida Hospital.

More specifically, concise presentations in class set the stage for interactive thought-provoking group discussions designed to achieve heightened conceptual and practical understanding of the issues. The process of exploring identified health care challenges/opportunities is intended to prepare students for effectively serving as health coaches in the community. Once a fundamental grasp of the core material is established, case presentations (actual de-identified patient scenarios), designed to evoke creative team-based strategies and solutions, will be utilized to prepare each student for the subsequent Health Coach practicum offered the following semester.

Students will develop a comprehensive series of bio-psycho-social insights for promoting positive health behaviors, enabling patients to move past their perceived obstacles and boosting overall adherence. During the subsequent practicum, student coaches will be assigned to either provide in-home visits or phone interactions.

Health coaches will become engaged in the processes of educating and motivating identified at risk patients to take an active and meaningful role in their health and well-being. Interdisciplinary weekly coaching