Education Research: Integration of Trainee and Faculty Clinics at an Academic Medical Center: Improving Quality of Care and Education.

Background and Objectives: Trainees provide a large proportion of neurologic care at academic medical centers in the United States. However, compared with their corresponding faculty practices, traditional trainee practices are often physically separate, serve primarily government-insured patients, and provide poorer continuity-of-care and reduced access to subspecialty services. We attempted to mitigate these challenges by merging the trainee and faculty practices at the Columbia University Department of Neurology over the 2022-2023 academic years. Methods: Over the 2022-2023 academic years, the Department merged the neurology trainee and faculty practices by embedding trainees fully within faculty clinics. We describe our integration process and share preliminary data on its effects on continuity of care and access to subspecialty services. We also share results from preintegration and postintegration surveys to residents and faculty demonstrating improvement in education and mentorship experience. Results: By the 2023 academic year, trainees were fully embedded in faculty clinics and paired with longitudinal faculty mentors. This improved continuity of care for the patients in the former trainee clinics from 87.3% to 99.6% ( Discussion: This study shows that integration of trainee and faculty practices is feasible and can improve continuity of care for patient groups who often receive inequitable neurologic care in academic centers. It can also significantly enhance the educational and mentorship experience for both trainees and faculty.