MGH Institute of Health Professions

The Challenge

The MGH Institute of Health Professions (MGHIHP) is dedicated to educating healthcare professionals through innovative learning experiences, research and clinical practice. The Office of Mission, Values and Community Excellence leads efforts to integrate health equity concepts and practices into the curriculum, research and institutional policies, consistent of the mission of the MGH Institute of Health Professions.

“The Office of Mission, Values and Community Excellence provides resources, training and programs that empower students, faculty, and staff to engage critically with issues of inequity in healthcare, ensuring that MGHIHP graduates are equipped to engage in solutions centered on health equity,” explains Gregory Moore, instructional technology manager at MGHIHP.

Addressing Healthcare Disparities Through Education

MGHIHP recognized that inequities remain a persistent issue and identified the need to integrate health equity education into its curriculum, ensuring that healthcare professionals are trained to understand and challenge these disparities. The institution created a program designed to introduce these concepts while also providing a structured space for meaningful reflection and discussion.

This need sparked the creation of the “What’s the IHP’s Role in Health Equity?” program — an in-person, five-hour workshop offered to students during orientation. However, with the growing concern for COVID-19 in 2020, increasing enrollment and the expansion of online programs, the need for a flexible, scalable and accessible format became apparent. Additionally, MGHIHP’s commitment to continuous learning meant that faculty and staff also needed opportunities to engage in further mission-critical education, requiring a program that could accommodate multiple audiences simultaneously.

The challenge was to design a program that could:

• Provide a foundational understanding of health equity and address real-world concerns
• Engage up to 500 faculty, staff and students per semester from different departments in a meaningful, discussion-based learning experience
• Maintain high levels of interaction and engagement despite an asynchronous format
• Ensure efficient management and facilitation with a small administrative team

The Solution

A Scalable, Engaging and Reflective Learning Experience

MGHIHP transitioned ”What’s the IHP’s Role in Health Equity?” to a fully online format hosted in D2L Brightspace, leveraging the platform’s automation and engagement tools to create an interactive and impactful learning experience. The course features automated enrollment and grouping through Brightspace’s Discover tool, allowing faculty, staff and continuing students to self-enroll, while new students are automatically registered through the registrar. Intelligent Agents then assign participants to discussion groups based on their role, ensuring meaningful peer interaction.

Meeting Real-World Needs

Each academic year, the course theme evolves to address contemporary issues in healthcare equity, ensuring that the content remains relevant and impactful.

The self-paced course consists of structured modules covering these yearly themes. Discussions, assignments and interactive content encourages learners to reflect on their own lived experiences and assumptions in relation to this.

“This workshop changed the way I think about healthcare disparities. The discussions helped me understand my role in creating a more inclusive healthcare system.” Anonymous, student, MGHIHP

Grades for Some, Awards for Others

Assessment and recognition are integral components of the program. New students complete graded assignments that count toward their transcripts, while faculty and staff receive digital badges and certificates through the Brightspace Awards tool. Facilitators, who guide discussions, also receive recognition for their contributions, fostering a community of engaged educators.

With up to 500 learners per semester submitting assignments, MGHIHP leveraged Quick Eval and Intelligent Agents to keep track of each learner’s progress and provide prompt feedback to every learner, regardless of the assignment.

“Quick Eval is one key piece of the puzzle,” says Moore. “The Quick Eval tool pulls together all assignments and posts in need of evaluation and puts them all in one place. This creates a “one-stop-shop” for the outstanding grading and feedback that the course staff from the team must provide. It ensures that all learners receive prompt feedback, and that course staff can easily coordinate and not duplicate their evaluation efforts”.

Supporting Facilitators

To support facilitators, MGHIHP has implemented a dedicated training program, ensuring that discussion leaders are well-prepared to guide conversations effectively. Facilitators receive ongoing support and resources, strengthening the overall quality of the learning experience. By integrating Brightspace’s advanced features, MGHIHP has created a streamlined, accessible, and engaging learning environment that effectively prepares healthcare professionals to address inequities in their field.

“To make the thematic changes sustainable, we needed to design the course to have a “core backbone” of content and activities that could remain consistent,” says Moore. “On that backbone, we make adjustments, additions, and deletions based on the theme and current events to customize the experience for each semester. Our design in Brightspace allows for easy, efficient, and clear changes from semester to semester, year to year.”

The Result

Transforming Future of Healthcare Practice

Since it’s pivot to the online format in 2020, the ”What’s the IHP’s Role in Health Equity?” program has seen significant growth and impact. Over 3,557 members of MGHIHP’s community have participated, with 87% of learners reporting that the experience has changed their perspective on health-equity related concepts.

Pre and post course surveys show an increase of 2.58 points on a 10-point scale in participants’ confidence in defining key terms related to the course.

The program has also strengthened MGHIHP’s institutional commitment to health equity, giving students a meaningful space to reflect on these issues and how they relate to their roles as aspiring healthcare professionals. 93% of participants find the course useful for their professional and educational goals.

Faculty and students have conducted research on the impact of the course, with studies showing that it enhances self-reflection and advocacy skills among healthcare professionals. These findings contribute to broader conversations about healthcare.

“I initially saw [the course] as just another requirement, but by the end, I realized how crucial these discussions are for my future career. The course gave me the tools to advocate for equitable healthcare practices.” Anonymous, doctor of occupational therapy student, MGHIHP