Criterion 4: Contribution to health services and health service partnerships for community/region

The school’s graduates and health service partnerships have a positive impact on the health care and the health of its community/region/nation. This is achieved through active community engagement at all levels from the graduates to the school as a whole. 

4.1. Workforce planning  

Producing the quantity and quality of graduates to support the healthcare needs of the community / region / nation.  

Assessors would seek evidence that your school provides the following:  

4.1.1     Actively seeks and develops sustainable partnerships with other stakeholders, including other health professional and governing bodies, to optimize its performance in meeting the requirement for quality and quantity of trained graduates as well as their deployment and impact on health.  

4.1.2   Produces a variety of generalists and specialists, appropriate both in quality and quantity to serve the evolving needs of the school’s community/region/nation.  

4.1.3   Produces graduates equipped with a range of competencies consistent with the development of the communities they serve, local environment in which they work, health system they work in, the expectations of the citizens and heath priorities of its community/region/nation.  

4.1.4  Produces graduates who are educated explicitly to be change leaders active in population health and health-related reforms, with an emphasis on coordinated patient-centered care, health promotion, risk and disease prevention, and rehabilitation. 

4.1.5     Produces graduates who are educated about the personal and regional health benefits of pursuing social and environmentally sustainable health policies; and about the causes and health consequences of environmental degradation and climate change, and with the skills to act as advocates or advisors to identify, mitigate or reverse such consequences.  

4.1.6     Works towards graduates being properly deployed, supported and retained where they are most needed to effectively and efficiently address priority health issues of the community/region/nation the school has a mandate to serve. 

4.1.7     Works with the health care system and other potential employers of graduates to enable them to provide care to underserved and disadvantaged community, regional, national and international patients and populations.  

4.1.8     Follows-up on graduates to assess their distribution and impact on health care and health of its community/region/nation. 

4.1.9     Other examples related to social and environmental accountability. 

1.      Health service partnerships 

For education and research to be most effective in improving the health and health care or veterinary care in the school’s community/region/nation, engagement and partnership with communities, health care organizations, health managers, policy makers, and government is vital. 

Assessors would seek evidence that your school provides the following: 

1.        Partners with local and regional communities to provide accessible health services to local communities. 

2.        Partners with community, professional organizations, and health authorities at all levels on policies and strategies for more environmentally responsive health systems.  

3.        Partners with local health authorities and the community to develop specific plans, strategies, policies and practices to assess and meet the needs for all groups within the community/region with particular attention to groups who are under-resourced, most adversely affected by health threats including environmental pollution or marginalized due to ethnicity, culture, age, location or other factors.  

4.        Partners with health care organizations and communities in projects to improve the health of underserved and disadvantaged communities, regional, national and international patients and populations.  

5.        Partners with local health authorities and the community to help identify and reduce the environmental impact of health programmes, and work with them to provide a more environmentally sustainable future. 

6.        Partners with communities, government and health organizations to demonstrate the school and its students’ involvement with effective local, regional or national initiatives to promote social justice and reduce or mitigate the impacts of environmental degradation and climate change. 

7.        Other examples related to social justice and environmental accountability in health service partnerships and where schools manage their own health systems.