Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine’s COVID Support Our Schools Initiative Assisting at Peak of Pandemic Publishes Findings

December 15, 2022, Nutley, NJ – An innovative program started to assist public schools amid the pressures and uncertainty of the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic has culminated in a paper published by faculty from the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

The paper, in the journal Children, concludes the COVID Support Our Schools (SOS) program helped underserved communities at a critical time – and its benefits could help with community health outreach beyond the time of a pandemic. 

“Our initiative can serve as a framework for other institutions to establish a community– academic partnership,” the authors write. “Such initiatives and community involvement can continue beyond the pandemic to address ongoing healthcare concerns and challenges such as vaccine hesitancy, health curriculum, and sports safety.”

“We are so proud of the commitment to the mission and values of the School that the Human Dimension represents,” said Jeffrey Boscamp, M.D., dean of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, who was not one of the authors. “This was an example of really making an impact in the community at a time of unthinkable need.”

COVID SOS was developed as part of the School’s Human Dimension course curriculum, which is focused on outreach into the community. COVID SOS aimed to provide expertise about opening, and opening safely, to select school districts in underserved communities that had previously partnered with the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine’s innovative Human Dimension program. 

Each of the schools was paired with a Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine Support Our Schools Task Force consisting of eight medical students supervised by one of the School’s faculty physicians. Each Task Force was trained in the latest in COVID-19 research and developments. The members of each task force met with school leadership approximately once a month. 

Overall, the COVID SOS program reached 11 school districts and one Boys and Girls Club which totaled 138 individual schools from historically underserved areas across New Jersey.

In addition to a personalized task force, school districts had access to the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine Faculty COVID Advisory Board of 12 members, which hosted regular Q-and-A sessions as much as every week, depending on COVID trends of the time, in order to provide real-time support and weekly scientific updates. 

COVID SOS assisted on topics such as:

– COVID-19 guidelines (overall)

– Staffing and operational challenges

– Child abuse and neglect during COVID-19

– Masking

– Planning for vaccinations

– Education disparities

– Unique challenges of Remote Learning

– Mental health impact of COVID-19 on communities

Eighty-three percent of the school districts responded to a follow-up survey, with almost all scores in the 90th percentile. 

“It was wonderful having access to real-time information from experts in our area,” wrote one school group. 

“We provided personalized support and resources to these schools to help them navigate the pandemic,” said Harpreet Pall, M.D., MBA, CPE, the academic chair and professor of the School’s Department of Pediatrics, and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Hackensack Meridian K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital. “The group did its job – and found a way to make an even-bigger impact – when we were confronted with the health crisis of our time.”

The Human Dimension course at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine is a three-year class focused on teaching future doctors the importance of the “social determinants of health” – including housing, food access and other standard-of-life factors. Pairs of medical students are matched with families and a community. The students come to know these individuals, families and communities very well—and in turn, the families and communities have become connected to the school. So far, about 265 families and 80 community partners have been touched by the program, in communities including Clifton, Nutley, Passaic, Paterson,  Hackensack, Garfield, Bloomfield, West New York, Union City and groups spanning the State of New Jersey.

“In order to create health equity, we must create meaningful partnerships within our communities built on trust,” said Carmela Rocchetti, M.D., director of the Human Dimension. “We are grateful to have provided this support in an unprecedented time of need.” 

ABOUT HACKENSACK MERIDIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE 

The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, the first private medical school in New Jersey in more than 50 years, welcomed its first class of students in 2018 to its On3 campus in Nutley and Clifton. Hackensack Meridian Health assumed financial responsibility for the School in July 2018, and the School established its independence as a freestanding Institution of Higher Education in July 2020. The first cohort of doctors graduated in 2021. The school’s vision is that each person in New Jersey, and in the United States, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, will enjoy the highest levels of wellness in an economically and behaviorally sustainable fashion. The School’s unique curriculum focuses on linking the basic science with clinical relevance, through an integrated curriculum in a team-oriented, collaborative environment. The school prides itself on outreach, through programs like the Human Dimension, which is active in communities across New Jersey. 

ABOUT HACKENSACK MERIDIAN HEALTH

Hackensack Meridian Health is a leading not-for-profit healthcare organization that is the largest, most comprehensive and truly integrated health care network in New Jersey, offering a complete range of medical services, innovative research and life-enhancing care. The network has 18 hospitals and more than 500 patient care locations, which include ambulatory care centers, surgery centers, home health services, long-term care and assisted living communities, ambulance services, lifesaving air medical transportation, rehabilitation centers, urgent care centers, physician practice locations, and a fitness and wellness center. With more than 35,000 team members and 7,000 physicians, Hackensack Meridian Health is a distinguished leader in health care philanthropy and committed to the health and well-being of communities throughout New Jersey. To learn more, visit www.hmsom.org.

The network’s notable distinctions include having more U.S. News-ranked hospitals than any other health system in New Jersey, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, 2022-23. Hackensack University Medical Center is nationally-ranked by U.S. News & World Report in four specialties, more than any other hospital in New Jersey. Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center, and K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, are ranked #1 in the state and top 20 in the Mid-Atlantic Region by U.S. News & World Report’s 2022-23 Best Children’s Hospital Report. Additionally, their combined nephrology program ranks in the top 50 in the United States. To learn more, visit www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org.