Clinical Assessment Center

The Clinical Teaching and Assessment Center (CTAC) in the Health Sciences Learning Center provides the resources, staff, and technology for students to practice and demonstrate clinical competencies, such as taking a medical history, doing physical exams, and learning about communication with patients.

In the CTAC, students interact directly with patients who are coached to present specific health concerns and problems (see link___ for information about the Standardized Patient Program). These hands-on learning and testing experiences engage the learners and faculty and provide both groups with tangible evidence that students can translate knowledge into skills.

The CTAC, opened in June 2004, has advanced audiovisual technology for video-capture of students’ patient encounters and electronic scoring of performance-based assessments.

As a result of the Innovations in Medical Education grant through the Wisconsin Partnership Program, significant advances have been made in the expansion of teaching and assessing students’ cultural competence skills:

• Additional IME- funded personnel hiring has occurred, allowing for expanded recruitment of diverse Standardized Patients and increased utilization of education-related technology by faculty and staff.
• Thirty percent (30%) of standardized patients in the program are culturally diverse, an increase from 13% pre-IME.
• The CTAC established a Community Advisory Committee to facilitate recruitment of diverse standardized patients, advise curricular leaders on the incorporation of cultural competence concepts into the curriculum and performance-based teaching and testing, and to develop teaching partnerships with community groups. The Committee is composed of local leaders in health, social service and advocacy organizations (See the list of Community Advisory Committee members).
• The Community and the Clinical Advisory Committees (See the list of Clinical Advisory Committee members) met in conjunction to discuss further development of cultural competence teaching strategies, communication skills, and interdisciplinary teaching.
• CTAC staff provided support for two innovative "Core Day" sessions for all third year students to practice applying cultural competence-related skills to patient interactions

The CTAC has increased outreach to other programs and schools:

• Center staff were invited to conduct a workshop about Standardized Patient recruitment and training for the American Association of Communication in Healthcare national conference.
• Center staff presented a workshop at the UW campus-wide Teaching and Learning Symposium in March '06. The presentation will be used in the future for educational and promotional purposes with campus and external groups.
• The Center staff assisted the SMPH Department of Pediatrics in case development and piloting of cases focused on communication with teens about sensitive topics such as drug use and sexually-transmitted illnesses.
• The CTAC director collaborated on the Northern Area Health Education Center’s pilot project for the creation of a Hmong health care interpreter skills test.
• As a resource for community health organizations and other health professions program, the CTAC provided services to:
  • The UW Physical Therapy Program
  • The UW School of Veterinary Medicine
  • The UW Genetics Counseling Program
  • UWHC Nutrition program
  • The UWHC General Internal Medicine faculty
  • SMPH Office of Continuing Professional Development
  • The Wisconsin Pharmacy Licensing Board
• Meetings to discuss use of the Clinical Assessment Center were held with the Madison Patient Safety Collaborative, the Wisconsin Child Welfare training program, and the Department of Corrections.

Other activities include:

• The CTAC director collaborated on the Northern Area Health Education Center's pilot project for the creation of a Hmong health care interpreter skills test.
• The CTAC website has been created (see link __), and brochure development is in its final planning stage.
• The CTAC staff is working with the NIAAA research grant "Training Simulation to Teach Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention"