Goals

ImproveHealthCare cases are the basis for running case discussions for the first- and second-year students of Harvard Medical School. Consistently running well-publicized and organized case discussions is an integral part of engaging fellow classmates in discussions regarding critical issues in health policy. Aside from the cases being educationally important, both leading case discussions throughout the year and bringing in speakers on important health policy issues can strengthen an ImproveHealthCare chapter. The cases are designed to contain enough background information to allow case leaders to use the background as a guide, without requiring further research. After each case, make sure to collect feedback from the students who participated. By generating demonstrable metrics of student involvement and organizational impact, a chapter can make a convincing case for institutional and grant support.

Cases

Choose a case that is both interesting to the student leaders and appropriate to the current political, medical, and educational climate. The recent debate over health care reform has made students very aware of the importance of health policy on their future medical practices, and, by integrating policy cases with the curriculum, your chapter can help advance the discussion about the policy issues surrounding our clinical decisions. For example, the case of “Sarah Gomez’s Misplaced Heart” might be appropriate during an immunology or transplant block when tissue rejection is being taught. If drug safety has recently been in the news, then “Post-approval Medication Surveillance: The Case of Antidepressants in Children” would provide an opportunity for you and your classmates to discuss current events. The goal is engagement of our colleagues to consider issues of access, quality, and disparities in medicine and how students might be proactive. Please refer to the list of ImproveHealthCare cases to choose those that will most appropriately meet your chapter’s needs.

Publicity and Involvement

We have found that case discussions are most successful during a lunch-hour period, either as a brown bag event or, if you can secure funding, with lunch provided. Good publicity and enthusiasm can more than make up for a lack of funding. We have found that emails three to four days in advance of the talk, as well as one day ahead of time, create sufficient awareness of the event. These emails must be direct and pithy. You want to engage your audience with a catchy title and a few interesting aspects of your case.

Evaluation

Affiliates are generally interested in the type of activities (cases and talks) that are most effective in educating students about health policy. Please give us informal feedback on the results of these activities at your school. This information is very helpful as we continue to refine our library of cases, and helps other chapters determine the most effective ways to run activities at their schools.

Sample questions:

Pre-/Post-Case Do you feel that you learned more about [insert case-specific health systems or health policy issue] from the case discussion?
(Not at all)     1     2     3     4     5     (Significantly)

Post-Case Did you feel there was adequate time to get through the case?
(Not enough time)     1     2     3     4     5     (Too much)

Post- Case How did you like the content of this case?
(Not at all)      1     2     3     4     5      (Loved it)