Clinical Excellence Case Sets and Embedded Curricular Threads Coming July 1
Aquifer is excited to share two important initiatives launching July 1, 2023, to provide consistent coverage of key interdisciplinary principles and topics students need to understand to provide excellent patient care. Our Clinical Excellence topics cover important but often overlooked or difficult-to-teach topics that don’t have an obvious place in many programs’ curricula. Students feel this gap and are seeking trusted, consistent content in these areas. With the launch of these new content initiatives, faculty can have confidence that Aquifer covers these themes in clinical context throughout the students’ journey through their rotations.
This new content will enhance and expand Aquifer’s coverage of:
- Trauma-informed care
- Palliative care
- Social determinants of health
- High value care
- Diagnostic excellence (reducing medical errors)
- Telemedicine
Clinical Excellence Case Sets, available for purchase July 1, deliver focused, in-depth teaching on these important topics. The Case Sets expand upon our popular interdisciplinary cases with redesigned and updated content paired with new cases in palliative care and trauma-informed care.
New embedded curricular threads will weave key interdisciplinary principles directly into Aquifer’s core cases, providing just-in-time learning for students and allowing programs to ensure coverage without adding faculty time.
With access to both the case sets and curricular threads, programs have the trusted tools needed for introducing topics for early learners, revisiting key principles during relevant core clerkships, and building advanced electives.
“We’ve heard from students that they want to learn about these topics longitudinally throughout their education, through realistic scenarios that mirror what they will experience in clinic. This feedback has driven our development process, and by pairing the curricular threads and Clinical Excellence Case Sets, we are able to give programs the tools they need to provide this cohesive learning journey.”
— Emily Stewart, MD; Aquifer Chief Curriculum Officer
Clinical Excellence Case Sets
Aquifer’s existing interdisciplinary cases will be updated and redesigned, and new cases will be added to form the Clinical Excellence Case Sets. 52 new or optimized interdisciplinary cases will be included in the Clinical Excellence Case Sets, which will be available on July 1 by subscription for the price of one Aquifer course, including:
- Excellence in Palliative Care • 13 cases
- Trauma-Informed Care • 12 cases
- High Value Care • 13 cases
- Social Determinants of Health • 3 cases
- Foundations of Telemedicine • 4 cases
- Diagnostic Excellence • 7 cases
New Course & Case Structure
The Clinical Excellence Case Sets will follow a new, streamlined course and case structure, delivering shorter, more focused cases. This structure debuted with the launch of Excellence in Palliative Care and has now been adopted across the other courses. Cases take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.
Each case set begins with a principles module, which covers key definitions, epidemiology, explanations of key principles and why they are important for patient care, and a harm statement that makes it explicit what harm can come to the patient if the principle is not incorporated into practice.
After completing the principles module, students unlock additional application cases that explore realistic case scenarios. Application cases are concise and focus on one area of a patient encounter, and are centered around asking students to make important clinical decisions. Content models evidence-based best practices and communication strategies, exploring the real-world impacts on care and potential harm. At the end of each case, a reflection question asks the students to consider key takeaways, implications for their future practice, or personal wellness. Each application case also includes self-assessment questions that extend the learning to other scenarios.
Embedded Curricular Threads
Excellence in Action: Clinical Excellence Topics
Embedded curricular threads are designed to provide just-in-time learning on key interdisciplinary topics that students need to understand to provide excellent patient acare within our core cases without adding significant time to each case (estimated 2 minutes per case). Eighty cases will include one curricular thread on a single clinical excellence topic and ask students to make a clinical decision related to that topic, followed by a detailed answer comment and teaching points—providing this additional knowledge in an engaging and interactive way.
Sample content:
As of July 1, 2023, we will be launching curricular threads in our Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, Pediatrics, Radiology, and Neurology cases to cover all six clinical excellence topics. By adding this content into our core cases, Aquifer is able to provide a consistent learning experience, teaching about these areas in a way that makes sense to students and as they would be encountered clinically through undifferentiated patients.
Although short and concise, these 80 components will make a big impact across Aquifer’s entire curriculum. Faculty and administrative users will be able to easily search and filter cases with embedded threads in the Content Library. This content will be available to all subscribers.
Accessing Clinical Excellence Content
Curricular Partners subscribing to all Aquifer content will have full access to all Clinical Excellence Case Sets and all cases that include embedded curricular threads, providing maximum flexibility and consistency.
Limited subscribers who subscribe to select courses only will have access to embedded curricular threads in their subscribed courses, and the option to purchase the Clinical Excellence case set, including access to 25 new (previously unavailable outside the Curricular Partner package) Palliative Care and Trauma-Informed Care cases, in addition to updated High Value Care, Diagnostic Excellence, Social Determinants of Health, and Foundations of Telemedicine case sets. Limited subscribers who do not choose to subscribe to the Clinical Excellence Case Set will no longer have access to High Value Care, Diagnostic Excellence, Social Determinants of Health, and Foundations of Telemedicine cases.
As of July 1, 2023:
Curricular PartnersSubscribe to all Aquifer courses at a discounted rate |
Limited SubscribersSubscribe to 1-4 Aquifer courses |
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| Embedded Curricular Threads | Included | Included for selected courses |
Clinical Excellence Case Set
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Included | Only if Clinical Excellence Case Set is purchased |
| Oral Presentation Skills modules | Included | |
“Our teams of expert medical educators have worked hard to build this content to enhance and extend the learning provided in Aquifer’s growing content library. We are excited to provide these new tools to support programs and faculty in developing the best possible future clinicians,” said Emily Stewart, MD, Aquifer’s Chief Curriculum Officer.
