Educate

At the Center, future health care providers, attorneys, health policy experts, social workers and health systems engineers work with patients to become effective advocates. Through coursework, practical advocacy experience, and independent study, students collaborate to understand and address problems in the health care system.

In graduate-level courses, students meet regularly with staff and guest experts from a range of disciplines to explore aspects of patient-centered care. They examine health system financing and delivery, barriers to health care access, the legal rights of patients and alternatives for health care reform. In the Center's learning program, students provide free advocacy services to patients with life-threatening and serious chronic illnesses. By working directly with clients, as well as students and faculty from a variety of disciplines, students learn the skills they need to advocate for individual patients and for system-wide transformation.

Students also serve as project assistants, and many elect independent study projects after an initial experience at the Center. Students have prepared papers on such topics as childhood cancer, informed consent, hospital charity care programs, transportation issues for the elderly seeking health care, coping with death and dying as a health care professional, and the role of apology in preventing malpractice lawsuits.

Courses for Graduate and Professional Students

Consumer Issues in Health Systems and Health Care Delivery (Law 940, 2-3 Credits, spring semester)

This is an interdisciplinary course for graduate and professional students interested in learning about modern health care delivery from a consumer perspective. The course examines the current health care delivery system in the United States, including expenditures and financing, applicable laws and regulations, managed care and other types of insurance, barriers to health care access, mental health parity and various reform proposals. As an intentional interdisciplinary course, it is designed to enhance collaboration between students of diverse professional backgrounds (e.g. law, medicine, pharmacy, health systems industrial engineering, public affairs, public health) who approach issues in health care delivery from a multitude of viewpoints.

We examine selected issues consumers face as they try to negotiate medical care, including: allocation of limited health care resources, the impact of medical malpractice, complementary and alternative medicine, consumer problems with managed care and indemnity insurance, and the challenge of end of life needs. The consumer perspective is our focal point as we ask how consumers acquire information necessary to make significant health care decisions.

This 2-3 credit course is taught on Wednesday from 5:40 to 7:40PM by Center for Patient Partnerships faculty Meg Gaines, Clinical Professor of Law, with Sarah Davis, Assistant Clinical Professor, Mary Michaud, MPP, Director of Evaluation and Policy and invited guest faculty from various professional backgrounds. For more info, email cpp@law.wisc.edu.

Law and Contemporary Problems: Rights & Responsibilities in Health Care(Law 940, 2-3 Credits, fall semester)

This interdisciplinary, two to three-credit course explores legal rights and responsibilities in the U.S. health care system, including limitations of using such a paradigm. As health systems grow more complex, the roles of professionals, patients, and other stakeholders reflect that complexity. How can all health systems stakeholders (patients, providers, payers, family members) ensure rights are respected? Responsibilities fulfilled? When stakeholders do not agree on a right or responsibility - how are such disagreements reconciled? In policy? In law? In ethics? In practice?

This interactive course explores: various stakeholders' perspectives in defining, asserting and protecting patients' and larger public health community rights; the framing of issues in contemporary health care debates; and competing rights and responsibilities. Faculty, guest scholars, and students bring diverse perspectives to these topics.

We begin the course framing and contextualizing the issues, including a comparative systems review, move to an analysis of various stakeholder perspectives, and conclude with an in-depth look at a sample of contemporary health care issues as a lens to examine competing rights and responsibilities.

In this collaborative curriculum, all students nominate contemporary issues to be explored, and those enrolled for 3 credits co-teach one of these sessions. All students prepare an investigative paper and present on their selected topics.

Consumer Health Advocacy and Patient-Centered Care Clinical (Law 854, 3-7 Credits, every semester, consent of instructor required)

Download the Application

In a collaborative hands-on environment, future health care providers, and other professional and graduate students learn skills and knowledge to advocate more effectively for patients by working as patient advocates with individuals diagnosed with life-threatening or serious chronic illnesses. The Center's interdisciplinary team approach enhances problem-solving capabilities and access to a wide range of resources.

Participating in a collaborative, interdisciplinary/interprofessional environment, students of the Center:

• Staff individual patient cases and experience firsthand the role of advocacy in the health care system;
• Explore concepts of patient-centered care and health systems (dis)functioning in a "service-learning" environment;
• Learn core advocacy skills relevant to many disciplines - case monitoring, confidentiality, communication, fact finding, decision making, and ethics;
• Attend weekly staffing sessions including case review with colleagues and instructors and presentations by guest speakers on relevant topics (e.g. researching a medical issue; employment law related to disability/healthcare issues, administrative agency processes, insurance coverage); and
• Engage in improvement projects to build capacity in the Center and our ability to advocate effectively for clients.

Center staff supervise student patient advocates and provide experience and training in law, medicine, health policy, nursing, counseling and psychology, management, anatomy and cell biology, and engineering.

Other Graduate Level Courses

For a list of other graduate level courses at UW-Madison that might be of interest to students interested in health law, health policy, and consumer perspectives on the health care system, click here.

Want to Help?

As the Center for Patient Partnerships grows, you can help educate, advocate and innovate to make health systems more consumer-centered. Though we do not charge for our advocacy services, we welcome contributions to the Center. Please join the mission by contributing!

Make a secure contribution now.