Interprofessional education through healthcare hotspotting: Understanding social determinants of health and mastering complex care through teamwork

To better prepare the future healthcare workforce, we implemented a curriculum for interprofessional student teams to learn about collaborative care through working with the most medically and socially complex patients in our healthcare system. Our six-month healthcare hotspotting experience included in-person and on-line learning about topics relevant to complex care and teamwork. Clinical experiences took place in clinics, emergency departments, hospitals, and patients’ homes or community. This manuscript presents our student hotspotting curriculum and the initial student feedback collected to shape ongoing curricular improvements. Patient outcomes were evaluated to support the importance of continued program implementation. Chart review of patient healthcare utilization found the number of hospital days (P = 0.03) and emergency room days (P = 0.03) significantly decreased, and consequently saved patient care cost (P = 0.03). Our experience and findings suggest healthcare hotspotting programs like ours may be valuable opportunities for teaching students about interprofessional collaboration and health equity while improving the quality of patient care.