Support for rural practice education

In 2021, UBC Health completed the Rural Education Acceleration and Collaboration in Health (REACH) project aimed at supporting interinstitutional and cross-sector collaboration. The project focused on facilitating practice education in rural and remote communities in BC. With funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training, UBC Health convened partners interested in enhancing the capacity and quality of rural practice education to improve the current rural practice education ecosystem and support student readiness for the rural healthcare context.

The project resulted in the development of the REACH Action Framework as a model for enhancing rural practice education. The framework offers a flexible and scalable model that can be used in any rural and remote area of BC. It consists of key strategic elements grouped into four themes—Plan & Innovate, Recruit, Retain, Sustain—that are the collective responsibility of partners, including policymakers, post-secondary institutions, faculty members, health professionals/preceptors, healthcare organizations, and communities.

Strategic Objectives

REACH advances the following UBC Health strategic objectives:

• Expanded placements: Help UBC’s health and health-related programs develop models that build placement capacity, as well as promote collaborative placements across British Columbia
• Coordinated responses: Coalesce experts and efforts to further collaborative health education and interdisciplinary research in response to pressing health challenges
• Evidence for new approaches: Help align university and sector activities to establish evidence for new approaches to health

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