Developing interprofessional immigrant health education for emergency physicians

Background: As of 2021, there were 47 million immigrants in the United States. Immigrant populations are uninsured at higher rates than US citizens, leading many to rely on emergency departments (ED) for their healthcare needs. However, emergency physicians (EP) often lack training on the unique challenges faced by this population, necessitating educational interventions. 

Methods: We implemented educational interventions for an urban emergency medicine residency program using Kern’s six-step approach for curriculum development to inform EPs of existing immigration-specific patient resources; teach social-medical-legal best practices with regard to asking, documenting, and sharing immigration-specific health information; and increase awareness of ED-relevant local policies. We developed three educational interventions.in collaboration with legal organizations, and community experts. To evaluate the success of these interventions we administered a pre-and post-survey to 64 EPs (36% of 178 targeted learners) 

Results: We found a significant increase in confidence and knowledge, with an average 5-point Likert scale score improvement of 1.47 (P < .001) in all responses and 1.40 (P < .001) in paired responses, and an improvement in test scores on the three knowledge-based questions of 30.66% (P < .001) in all responses and 33% (P = .02) in paired responses. 

Conclusion: This study highlights a model for interprofessional collaboration in curriculum development and the importance of a multipronged educational approach to improve the care of immigrants in the ED. The curriculum offers a framework for other EDs aiming to address healthcare inequities for this population. Future research can explore long-term knowledge retention, detailed educational tool utilization, and the impact on patients.