CCHS Partners with UT College of Nursing

Chota Community Health Services is proud to announce a unique and innovative partnership with the University of Tennessee College of Nursing to change the shape of education for medical professionals in our area. As a patient, you may visit several healthcare professionals across varying disciplines over the course of time – primary care providers, pharmacists, specialists, dieticians – just to name a few. Have you ever thought, “If I could just get all these guys in one room, we could really get somewhere!” That’s what this new initiative is all about! It focuses on a team-based approach to care, involving student medical professionals from several healthcare disciplines, including future nurse practitioners, pharmacists, dieticians, and public health graduate students, in collaboration toward a comprehensive plan of care for the patient.

Student teams and their instructors will be coming to Chota Community Health Services on scheduled visits over the next three years to work together with patients and their regular provider to enhance the services we provide. The choice to involve the University of Tennessee team will be up to the individual patient, so select patients may be asked ahead of their visit if they are interested or willing to participate.

This team-based learning opportunity is called Inter-Professional Education (IPE). If the team participates in your visit, they will add their expertise to help develop or improve your plan of care, and in return the team gets to learn how to better work together toward a common goal of patient benefit. The healthcare providers gain a deeper understanding of how to communicate with patients, as well as with their peers. This knowledge has proven to be invaluable as we prepare the next generation of excellent medical providers. This is just one way in which Chota Community Health Services and the University of Tennessee are advancing the quality of healthcare services in our community.

To read more about this initiative, visit the web at the University of Tennessee College of Nursing website: https://nursing.utk.edu/serviceandlearning/Pages/ICE.aspx