“Pandemic Lessons Learned: Improving Care Provisions and Service Delivery for Individuals with Disabilities”

Pandemic Lessons Learned – Final Brochure

This event is free for students, interns, residents, patients, and family members. American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters will be available on Zoom during the conference.

This conference will focus on changes in the health care system precipitated by the COVID pandemic. We will review systems of care for wellness and rehabilitation for people with disabilities and the way in which care providers strategized to meet the needs of individuals they served this past year. Clinical and classroom teaching was dramatically impacted by social distancing mandates and health and safety concerns. Presentations will review how educators perceived the new strategies for teaching over the pandemic and what aspects of clinical teaching will be changed forever.

In addition, the influence of telehealth had a major impact on traditional service delivery models. For some fields of health care, the innovative clinical strategies which evolved will facilitate patients improved access to physical, behavioral health care and specialist consultant services. For other disciplines in medicine, the pandemic had major negative health status outcomes. Consumers were differently impacted by economic, social, geographic and disability related variables.

The keynote speaker is Lisa Iezzoni, MD. Dr. Iezzoni is a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has spent over three decades conducting research examining health care quality, delivery systems and policy issues relating to persons with disabilities. Dr. Iezzoni is also the first woman to be appointed as a professor in the department of medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, MA and is a member of the Institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences.

Program Overall Educational Objectives
At the conclusion of this conference, participants should be able to:
1. Review best practice models that arose to circumvent unique clinical issues during the pandemic
2. Recognize new modalities for teaching and professional development using virtual platforms and distance learning in combination with new triage strategies to meet clinical needs
3. Identify changes in clinical care that evolved and discuss the role that practitioners, program planners and payors will have to move new innovations and visions of more efficient practice forward
4. Discuss the potential role of telehealth and the “hybrid” model of care to meet the complex needs of people with disabilities, with close attention to existing racial and ethnic disparities across subpopulations.

Who Should Attend:
Mental Health Consumers; Mental Health Providers; Medical Physicians; Advanced Practice Providers; Nurses, Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Medical Students, Dental professionals, Community Members, Social Workers, Case Managers, Behavioral Health Providers

Friday, December 10, 2021
Live-streaming Program on ZOOM
Instructions and Zoom links will be sent out to registered participants the day prior to the event.
ZOOM with check in from 8:00 to 8:30 PM
Program from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM
Course Director:
Kimberly Mathos, DO, MPH