Bill Keck, MD, MPH, Chair, Academic Health Department Learning Community; Chair, Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice; Professor Emeritus, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University
Collaboration between partners in
academic health department (AHD) partnerships often involves the sharing of resources, but how can this be accomplished when organizations are operating with limited funding? This inaugural column of the Ask the AHD Expert series explores the question of how resources can be shared in the absence of sharing funding.
Question: I work in an academic institution and wonder if there are examples of sharing resources between academic institutions and health departments at no cost, such as schools of public health allowing health department staff to attend online courses as “observers” or “auditors” or giving access to citation manager software or e-library access to health department staff. Things can be done at a cost, but if there are examples of no-cost resource sharing, it would be great to hear how they were set up.
Answer:
I suspect there are lots of examples of academic institutions and health departments sharing resources without exchanging money. Typically, students involved in internships or practicums, one of the frequently seen elements of AHD partnerships, come without direct cost to the health department, working for free and providing free access to faculty expertise. At the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (now Northeast Ohio Medical University), we used to actually pay the host health department a little bit to cover the costs associated with students (phones, copying, computer access, etc.) and would often consult with health departments at no cost to help them address questions or solve problems. We formed an Office of Public Health Practice to give our public health partners a formal entry into the medical school and meetings of that group were used to keep in touch with all of our practice agency partners and bring in speakers at regular meetings of the office or at quarterly Public Health Grand Rounds. We also provided our health department partners with meeting space and technical assistance, such as access to medical education expertise to help design a board preparation course for sanitarians. The range and breadth of resources that could be made available will vary by place and by the strength of the desire to engage with practitioners.
To help illustrate the range of how organizations are sharing resources, check out these examples from other academic institutions involved in AHD partnerships:
- University of Illinois at Chicago – All of the AHD agreements at the University of Illinois at Chicago are no cost agreements. Having the university and health department engage in a partnership without funding negotiations allows both parties to focus on the intent of the collaboration. Although there is no funding tied to the partnerships, the partnerships do provide an opportunity for the organizations involved to engage in co-application for grants or research funding. In terms of specific activities, health department staff can audit in-person courses for only $15. That is the only cost for anyone per university policies. However, within the School of Public Health, the Coordinating Center for Public Health Practice can leverage a waiver for certain courses with faculty permission and Dean’s office approval. Brown bag talks, seminars, and workshops are also available to the health department for free. The university has further secured approval from the campus library to provide library access for academic/practice partnership efforts. To stay in compliance with the library, the Coordinating Center for Public Health Practice created NetIDs for partnerships under an affiliate status. With these NetIDs, health department partners have access to all library and online resources available to students, faculty, and staff of the university (i.e., digital library services, webinars, REDCap, Qualtrics, Lynda software trainings, Box, Google docs, etc.). Because the NetID process is university policy, the Coordinating Center for Public Health Practice was able to make use of systems that were already in place within the university.
- University of Kansas – Through the University of Kansas’ AHD partnership with the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, health department staff can audit classes at the university if the professor allows it, and having advanced local health department staff appointed as adjunct (or sometimes courtesy) faculty can allow access to university library databases. In addition, university faculty may assign class projects to a topic driven by the local health department. For example, the initial work with the journalism school to “brand” the health department was a semester-long class project that was fully supported by faculty. Faculty also provide consultation on areas like performance management or use of population-level data. This helps to meet the health department’s needs and provides additional demonstration of service for faculty.
- University of Tennessee – At no cost, the University of Tennessee's Department of Public Health has given university library database access to peer-reviewed journals to approximately 15 health department employees through its AHD partnership. To accomplish this, the head of the department signs a form designating the health department employee as a research partner, which in turn, grants them access to the online journals. Student interns also may be involved in conducting literature searches, providing a link for the health department to the literature.
- Virginia Tech – The New River AHD, which involves Virginia Tech and the New River Health District (VA), has a shared AHD coordinator position that is jointly funded by both organizations, a strategy that has helped to facilitate the sharing of resources. Although it can sometimes be difficult to get health department staff access to university library resources, a shared staff person can help be this bridge. Providing health department staff adjunct status at the university can also help, as was the case with the health director at the New River Health District, but the criteria for participation in academic endeavors can be high. Other examples of sharing resources are students working at the health department (free labor); health department staff giving lectures in MPH classes; faculty giving seminars to health departments; and the university providing technical assistance, such as the role Virginia Tech has served as an evaluator for health department projects.
Do you know of other examples of sharing resources within AHD partnership at no or low cost? How do you accomplish this within your own partnerships? I look forward to learning about even more great examples from your comments and questions in the Comments section below!
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