Literature Collection

BACKGROUND: Few studies have assessed students in different healthcare disciplines’ perceptions of the importance of learning standard competencies in AI technology. This study aimed to evaluate the learning needs, apprehensions/anxieties, and digital self-efficacy of students in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy regarding AI technology in healthcare. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey study included 521 students: 384 medical, 67 nursing, and 78 pharmacy students, with response rates of 32%, 61%, and 52% from the colleges of medicine, nursing, and pharmacy, respectively. Survey data were collected over a 3-month period using a self-reported questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS, including descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and chi-square tests. RESULTS: Students from all three disciplines agreed on the importance of learning about AI in healthcare, with agreement rates for the six core AI skill domains ranging from 80 to 92%. The AI Learning Anxiety/Fears questionnaire revealed varying anxiety levels about AI technology learning across the disciplines. Over 20% of students across all disciplines agreed or strongly agreed that they experience anxiety on the AI Learning Anxiety/Fears questionnaire. The digital self-efficacy scale score was negatively correlated with AI learning anxiety (r=-0.32, p = 0.01). CONCLUSION: This study offers insights into students’ perspectives on learning about AI, which will inform the development of effective AI curricula. These findings highlight the need for standardized AI curricula that can address learning needs and reduce anxiety across the healthcare disciplines. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-026-08931-3.

INTRODUCTION: Stanford Medicine is working to better coordinate care across the Stanford healthcare system, as well as improve patient and provider experiences in seeking and receiving care. This study aimed to explore the complexities of moving from a fragmented to an integrated academic healthcare system and to identify and explain factors (e.g., facilitators and barriers) of the implementation of three interventions meant to improve patient experience, reduce staff burden, and integrate health care systems across faculty and community settings. METHODS: We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews via Zoom with faculty and community physicians. Interviews were audio-recorded, professionally transcribed, and analyzed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and open coding. Using consensus coding approaches, researchers met regularly to discuss themes and adaptations to CFIR. RESULTS: We analyzed transcripts from interviews with physicians (n = 26). Factors impacting integration included the following: (1) physicians supported the interventions, promoting mission alignment; (2) physicians were motivated for change, reporting the existing system was intolerable; (3) physicians reported different priorities between clinics: faculty versus community and primary care versus specialty; (4) physicians prioritized interpersonal versus system solutions; (5) specialists were wary of unintended consequences of integration, specifically inappropriate bookings or patients being redirected to other clinics. Broadly speaking, facilitator factors 1-2 focused on the openness to, and tension for, change; and barrier factors 3-5 promoted or sustained variation across specialties and faculty/community clinics. CONCLUSIONS: Our results illustrate the challenges and opportunities of moving from a fragmented to an integrated healthcare system and emphasize the importance of building shared culture, collaboration, and coordinated actions across and within an integrated healthcare network.

BACKGROUND: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) and their families need coordinated services. Accordingly, integrated care models have been introduced as the standard for service provision. However, situations with coordination and collaboration challenges occur leading to fragmented services that do not meet the care needs of children and families. This study aimed to identify stakeholders involved in the care and follow-up of children and their families and explore their roles, responsibilities, and relationships to inform the improvement of integrated care for children with CP. METHODS: A stakeholder analysis was conducted based on interviews with children, parents, and service providers; observations in multidisciplinary coordination meetings; and a review of documents. Six families with a child aged between 8 and 12 years with a primary diagnosis of CP participated. Relevant service providers were identified through family interviews and were invited to individual or focus group interviews. RESULTS: The results identified 42 stakeholders categorized into 14 groups offering healthcare, educational, social, and family support services. Stakeholders become involved in the families' long-term care at different times and provide services within various time spans according to specific emerging challenges. Stakeholders' responsibilities include diagnosing and referring patients, providing short-term treatment, and providing long-term care. Additionally, responsibilities can be overlapping and unclear, and the involved stakeholders operate under different regulations and institutional contexts, leading to gaps in patient follow-up. Relationships between the stakeholders vary from full integration to no contact. CONCLUSION: Long-term care for children with CP and their families is complex, involving numerous stakeholders across various sectors, governed by regulations within different institutional contexts, challenging integrated care. Stakeholders' affiliation with different sectors and their varying roles has the potential to contribute to a holistic approach. However, without clear guidance this seems hard to achieve, which may lead to a lack of collective understanding and unmet needs for children and families. There is still a need for further research on collaborative experiences among children, families, and service providers, and their impact on integrated services.

Children from circumpolar regions must travel long distances to southern tertiary care centres for specialised care. While there are initiatives underway to support care closer to home, medical travel remains a necessity for many families. The Aakuluk clinic has been operating since 2019 at a tertiary hospital in Ottawa, Canada, to provide care to children from Nunavut. The clinic team includes nurse case managers, physicians, social workers, interpreters, and several community partners. This project aimed to identify the strengths and the challenges of the clinic from the perspectives of parents and healthcare providers. The study was conducted in collaboration with healthcare professionals and community members and was guided by Inuit research approaches. Fifty-one participants (parents and healthcare providers) in Nunavut and Ottawa were interviewed. The main strengths and challenges of the clinic that were reported are related to the following themes: access to holistic care, supporting the role of Inuit professionals as part of the care team, and resources needed to continue offering programmes such as Aakuluk to Inuit families. From the perspectives of parents and healthcare providers, there are several components of the Aakuluk model that can be considered when developing services for Inuit families in other tertiary care centres.

OBJECTIVE: To explore initial outcomes (treatment entry and completion and staff feedback) for an interdisciplinary military traumatic brain injury (TBI) treatment program with individualized support for co-occurring substance use (SU). DESIGN: A quality improvement effort was undertaken to develop an integrated model of care for TBI with support for service members and veterans (SM/Vs) with co-occurring SU. We describe treatment entry and completion outcomes, along with staff feedback, collected over 26 months of program implementation. SETTING: An intensive outpatient program (IOP) for SM/Vs with TBI, administered by a not-for-profit hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Three hundred and sixty-four (N=364) SM/Vs applying for TBI treatment (85.2% men, 28.3% active service, median age of 41 (interquartile range, ±12)). INTERVENTIONS: An Integrated Care Model for TBI + SU was developed and flexibly applied to support client needs, including modifications to assessment, intervention, and follow-up support related to SU. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We report on instances of noncompletion because of SU, percentage of admission denials because of SU, demographic and clinical predictors of entering care, and qualitative feedback from treating clinicians. RESULTS: Over 26 months, 188 individuals entered care, and just 7 who entered the IOP did not complete, with 1 of these instances because of SU. Clinician attitudes indicate optimism about the Integrated Care Model. Predictors of entering care, analyzed using logistic regression with recursive feature elimination, included multiple demographic (sex, race, location, service status) and clinical (SU and psychiatric history, brain injury symptom severity) characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: An interdisciplinary TBI treatment environment holds promise as a setting for incorporating SU-related support to enhance entry and completion for more SM/Vs.

Mental health provider shortages lead to substantial treatment gaps for mental health services worldwide, including throughout the United States. Task-sharing, in which providers with no or limited prior training in mental health care are trained to deliver psychological interventions, is a leading strategy to increase capacity, yet it has been under-utilized in the US to date. Recent legislative changes are starting to enable opportunities for task-sharing mental healthcare in the US. A leading example is Washington State's introduction of the Behavioral Health Support Specialist (BHSS), a supervised bachelors-level mental health provider role. However, little is known about patient perspectives on task-sharing mental health care within US settings. Our study engaged potential future patients at two integrated care clinics (n = 40) using mixed methods data collection (semi-structured individual interviews and brief structured surveys adapted from the acceptability and appropriateness sub-scales of the Mental Health Implementation Science Tools) to explore potential patient perspectives on the perceived acceptability and appropriateness of these reforms in the US. We identified three main qualitative themes: (1) Overall, potential patients reported that they perceived task-shared mental health care to be acceptable; (2) Potential patients reported familiarity with task-sharing from other clinical and community settings; and (3) Potential patients shared hesitations and questions that are important for implementers and educators to address. Quantitatively, most participants reported moderate to strong support for receiving care from a task-shared mental health provider. Given that legislative reform expanding care delivery via these roles is already well underway, our findings can help support successful implementation of a bachelor's level mental health provider role. Though the scope of this bachelor's level role is currently limited to Washington, other states are exploring introducing similar roles to their mental health workforce, so these findings may be applicable nationwide.

Objective: To examine providers' perceptions of integrated care prior to the merger of a university's student health center and counseling services. Participants: Seventeen providers across student health services (n = 9) and counseling (n = 8) agreed to participate in the qualitative study. Method: Semi-structured individual interviews that focused on the perceived benefits and challenges of the merger were conducted in December 2019. Following the interviews, a thematic analysis was completed. Results: The perceived benefits noted by providers centered on the ability of an interdisciplinary team to improve the coordination of, access to, and quality of care delivered to students. However, more anticipated challenges were reported by providers (e.g., differences in training and care protocols, losing one's autonomy as a provider). Conclusions: This qualitative study provides a more in-depth analysis of providers' perceptions of integrated care prior to implementation in a university setting and may have implications for model adoption.