Fourth Funding Cycle
08/01/96 - 07/31/01

Abstract

This revised application seeks to build on past experience with Boston's largely centralized model of TB care and take advantage of trends to shift primary health care to the community, in order to educate primary care providers, house officers, and students about TB. They will be linked with the city's Public Health TB Program to enable them to improve TB preventive services in a community-based primary care setting. Specifically, the application aims to (1) develop a community-based primary care curriculum for attending staff and house officers and students in Boston's neighborhood health centers to enable implementation of TB preventive services in the communities they serve, (2) develop a primary care TB curriculum for Pediatrics and Internal Medicine house officers at Boston University Medical Center, and (3) develop an integrated curriculum of TB education and training for medical students at Boston University School of Medicine that will be applied longitudinally throughout the years of predoctoral training. The quality of education and training and the delivery of preventive services to the community will be evaluated and feedback provided to participants. The goal is to improve the care of high-risk persons in Boston's inner-city communities, decrease future TB case rates, and provide a paradigm for managing TB in other settings.

Accomplishments of the Past Year

• Baseline data collection and initiation of TB curriculum for primary providers in Boston's Neighborhood Health Centers serving high-risk populations. This program is being coordinated with the development of preventive services delivery at high-risk health center sites in collaboration with the Boston Health Department's Tuberculosis Program.

• Survey of TB knowledge base of Boston Medical Center House Officers, and design and early implementation of an integrated TB curriculum for medicine and pediatrics training programs.

• Evaluation of TB education in Boston University School of Medicine's current curriculum, and preliminary design of an integrated program of TB education and training within that curriculum.

• Contracted with New England Research Institute (NERI, Watertown, MA) to develop and produce a seven to ten minute video detailing the elements of Boston's nursing case-management model of tuberculosis care for use in educating primary care providers and students.

For more information please contact:
John Bernardo, M.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine
Department of Medicine
School of Medicine
Pulmonary Center
Boston University Medical Campus
80 East Concord Street, R3
Boston, MA 02118
Phone: (617) 638-4860
FAX: (617) 536-8093
E-mail: jbernardo@bupula.bu.edu