Inside Look into An Academic and Freestanding Rehabilitation Hospital Partnership: An Administrative Case Report
Purpose: Development of formalized partnerships can have positive effects on clinical, educational, and research collaborations in didactic and clinical environments. The purpose of this case report is to describe accomplishments and opportunities for improvement within the partnership between an academic physical therapy program and a freestanding rehabilitation hospital.Methods/Description: Organizational Context: In April of 2013, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago [now the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (SRAlab)] and Northwestern University’s (NU) Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences (PTHMS) signed an agreement for a comprehensive clinical and academic collaboration. Evolution of the partnership has unfolded over the course of the past 5 years. Utilization of D'Amour's Four-Dimensional Model of Collaboration (shared goals and vision, internalization, formalization, and governance) was applied to illustrate the strengths and areas for growth for our partnership.1Results/Outcomes: Shared Goals and Vision: Overall, both institutions have missions and visions to lead globally in science-driven education, research, and clinical practice related to human movement and rehabilitation. Goals achieved in the last five years include: increasing clinical site offerings for DPT clinical education experiences from 11 to 33 student placements/year; establishing two jointly run NU-SRAlab physical therapy residencies, Orthopaedic and Neurologic; achieving full NU faculty appointments for four SRAlab physical therapists; and increasing the number of SRAlab clinicians serving as associated faculty in our DPT program from 7 to 18. Governance: Before the collaboration agreement was signed there was a need to understand the governance of the university, the medical school, and SRAlab. The Associate Chair of Clinical Practice position was designed to have roles and responsibilities at both organizations to facilitate joint governance of the collaboration. Internalization/Formalization: Formalization is an area for partnership growth. We are in the process of establishing shared goals and identifying steps to achieve these outcomes. For example, development of a more robust joint mentoring program. From the perspective of internalization, quarterly leadership meetings have been established in 2018.Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme: Our Leadership Landscape: Perspectives from the Ground Level to 30,000 Feet: The National Study of Excellence and Innovation in Physical Therapist Education has emphasized the importance of learner-centered and patient-centered care as components of structured partnerships.2,3 The NU-SRAlab collaboration has enhanced both clinical and classroom teaching by more fully integrating clinical faculty as full partners. The addition of residency education has also created a richer community for teaching and learning across professional and post-professional students. With the academic-clinical collaboration now firmly in place, clinicians, faculty, students, and leadership are focused on strategies and goals for further innovation to foster excellence in our three common missions.References: 1. D’Armour D, Goulet L, Labadie J, San Martin-Rodriguez L, Pinealt R. A Model of typology of collaboration between professionals in healthcare organizations. BMC Health Service Research. 2008, 8:I I88. 2. Jensen GM, Nordstrom T, Mostrom EM, Hack LM, Gwyer J. National study of excellence and innovation in physical therapist education: Part 1—design, methods, and results. Phys Ther. 2017;97: 857–874. 3. Jensen GM, Hack L, Nordstrom T, Gwyer J, Mostrom E. National study of excellence and innovation in physical therapist education: part 2—a call for reform. Phys Ther. 2017;97:875–888. 4. Navavi FH, Vanaki Z, Modhammadi E, Yazdani S. Balancing power: A grounded theory study on parthership of academic service institutes. Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism. 2017;5(3):124-133 5. Witteman HO, Chipenda Dansokho S, Colquhoun H, Fagerlin A, Giguere AMC, Glouberman S, Haslett L, Hoffman A, Ivers NM, Légaré F, Légaré J, Levin CA, Lopez K, Montori VM, Renaud JS, Sparling K, Stacey D, Volk RJ. Twelve Lessons Learned for Effective Research Partnerships Between Patients, Caregivers, Clinicians, Academic Researchers, and Other Stakeholders. J Gen Intern Med. 2018: Jan 4. doi: 10.1007/s11606-017-4269-6. [Epub ahead of print]