The CHIPS Team is composed of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy students. The team’s advisor is Dr. Melody Cunningham.

CHIPS: Community Health Initiative Program for Seniors.

The target population is senior companions working with MIFA, even though the team hopes that the MIFA clients will experience a secondary benefit. Components of CHIPS include:

• quarterly newsletter (contributors to include students, community leaders and content would include Q&A section, community resource guide, mental exercises, pictograms)
• intensive training on social, emotional, and physical aspects
• advisory board to guide the program

It was noted by the judges that NONE of the team members were born in the 1970s when the show “CHIPS” was running! Thank you, team and judges, for the engaging discussion about your project at the end of your presentation!

Team members of Team POMP were from medicine, pharmacy, graduate health sciences, occupational therapy. Their faculty advisor was Dr. Stuart Caplan. On the title slide is the saying: Leaves are supposed to fall. People aren’t.

The goals of Team POMP’s proposal were to address fall prevention and home safety. The team recommended a fall prevention seminar for the senior companions. The information from the seminar would provide the senior companion with information beneficial to them as well as to the clients that the senior companions serve.

Judges talked about the opportunities for this program to fit in with the existing MIFA programs. All the teams had great interactions with the judges – it was so great that the judges, students, and advisors gave up some of their Saturday for this worthwhile program!

ICE (In Case of Emergency): Personal Health Records

Team members composed of nursing, pharmacy, and medical students. Drs. Steve Nace and Linda Pifer were the team advisors.

The team is interested in addressing the issue of polypharmacy, which is an issue common to an older adult population, such as MIFA’s Senior Companions. The team touched on health literacy, poor patient-provider communication, and health records. Their program objectives were to provide medication reconciliation, improve functional health literacy, and create an ICE Folder.

The team’s logo was a UT along with the green person portion of the MIFA logo, with the words surrounding the icons of Uniting Communities, Education, Research, Clinical Care, Public Service. Clever idea.

The team described horizontal and vertical sustainability and laid out a timeline. They clarified some of the obstacles and answers that were important to address in initiating such a program.

The judges raised some good questions that team members answered quite well.

Team CHIC – Collaborative Health, Interprofessional Care

Team members are from medicine, dentistry, pharmacy. Faculty advisors were Drs. Chris Peters and Chastity Shelton. The students met with some seniors in the community and obtained information from MIFA to identify their focus. Ultimately, they decided to focus on the social determinants of health. The project’s purpose is to provide a broad foundation in healthcare education and to increase medical literacy and provide a forum for discussion. A goal is to have the MIFA senior companions share the knowledge they gain with their clients. A variety of class topics were identified. The plan is to have each college at UTHSC involved, with each college taking the lead on 2 classes.

The students conducted a brief “class” – including a pretest, brief session on nutrition, and a posttest. The team had a focus on a “win-win” with MIFA senior companions learning more to improve their health, as well as learning content to help improve the health of their clients!

The judges discussed the importance of the social aspect of the team’s proposal and noted that the team’s presentation showed their sensitivity to the senior companions. “It’s not about winning … it’s about making a positive change.”