Integrating Dietetic Interns into the Interprofessional Care
Access Network (I-CAN) Program
Lynnsey Bogash1, Sarah Quon1, Carol DeFrancesco, MALS, RDN, LD1
Graduate Programs in Human Nutrition -
PROJECT GOALS:
1. Incorporate nutrition into the interdisciplinary team by creating job descriptions for future
dietetic interns to follow. Descriptions will be on dietetic interns, I-CAN mentor, Community
Project mentor, interdisciplinary team students, and organization faculty.  Collected Conversations:
2. Reinforce the importance of nutrition to the huddles and client meetings.
SPECIFIC AIMS:
1. Integrate nutrition into the interdisciplinary care by providing education to clients and
promoting relevance to the team.
a. Provide educational topics on nutrition related to I-CAN population through
handouts and brief discussion at each huddle meeting.
b. Streamline basic nutrition care for clients by providing available materials,
resources, and more in accordance with nutrition needs and within scope of
practice.
2. Establish assessments in order to acquire data on how providing nutrition education supports
lowering social determinants of health.
a. Formative Assessment: Conduct during huddles and client meetings by asking
reinforcement questions and clarifications.
b. Summative Assessment: Inquire about the relevance of topics and education
provided after meetings and conclusively at the last meetings.
INTRODUCTION TO I-CAN:
Mission:
• The Interdisciplinary Care Access Network (I-CAN) is a program developed by the Oregon
Health and Science University's (OHSU) School of Nursing. Its aim is to follow the Academic-
Practice Partnership and serve disadvantaged and underserved clients, families, and
populations in Portland greater metropolitan area and Southern Oregon. By serving these
communities, I-CAN addresses social determinants of health by providing individuals with
opportunities of health literacy development. I-CAN allows for long-term commitment to
these neighborhoods and their community partners such as HeadStart, Family Nurturing
Center, and La Clinica. The program incorporates a faculty practice model while allowing
OHSU students to participate in an interdisciplinary team and develop learning experiences
with healthcare professionals. Until August 2017, dietetic interns were not a part of the
interdisciplinary team. Being implemented into this program allows for the integration of
nutrition into the clients' healthcare experience, as well as into the plan of action for the
interdisciplinary team.  will be important to develop implementation products and assess relevance of continuing the
History:  Pre-Huddle: First Meeting
• Since 2012, I-CAN has worked with 163 clients. Of the 163, 52 are active clients, 2 clients are
on hold, and 109 are non-active. A non-active client can mean that the client has met their
goals or transitioned (29), were lost to follow up (53), left the area or agency (14), passed
away (6), or withdrew by request (7). In 2013, the I-CAN network expanded to Medford,
Oregon and has involved programs such as La Clinica and HeadStart.
Student
Participation to
Date
School of Nursing
3rd and 4th Year Students 265
School of Medicine
1st and 3rd Year Medicine 29
4th Year Physician Assistant 5
OHSU/OSU College of
Pharmacy 152
4th Year Students
School of Dentistry
4th Year Students 145
Graduate Programs in Human
Nutrition 2
Dietetic Interns
Figure 1. Current student distribution in I-CAN. Dietetic interns were not
incorporated into the program in Southern Oregon until August 2017.
1Oregon Health & Science University - Portland, Oregon
TARGET POPULATION:
• As the purpose of the project is to further the understanding of nutrition, education is to be
provided to the interdisciplinary teams and faculty in addition to the clients. Thus, the target
population includes: the West Medford community, Interdisciplinary Teams, and Community
Agencies
Figures 2 & 3. Current affiliations that the dietetic interns are involved with in 2018. While
each serve a different age population, both affiliations aim to help low income populations.  It is important to note that these people acknowledged the importance of nutrition, but have
HOW IT WORKS:
Client Participation:
• Clients are referred to I-CAN by the community agency partnerships. All clients meet I-CAN
criteria and their candidacy is determined by their organizations. After proposing potential
clientele, they are screened by faculty to be admitted into the program. Clients’ assignment
to student teams is based off of their organization assignment.
• Due to the size of population and low admission rate in Southern Oregon, enrollment is
limited to one to four clients per student team.  sheet. To provide the ability and continuity of the recommendations, they will be uploaded as
• Clientele can graduate from the program after one school term, but also are capable of
continuing in the program further depending on their needs and desires.
Interdisciplinary Team Assignment:
• Each interdisciplinary team consists of 3-4 students and has up to 4 clients per term. I-CAN
connects the student interdisciplinary teams and the faculty in residence from the OHSU
School of Nursing with community health agencies within the designated neighborhoods to
create “Neighborhood Centers for Academic and Practice Partnerships”.  and anything else that needs to be noted. Role sheets will also be made for dietetic interns.
• The students each bring their own skill set to the team and the faculty in residence helps to
facilitate the interactions between the teams, clients, and community agencies.  activity.
• Students conduct home visits with their clients to focus on social determinants of health,
health care, and health outcomes to meet both the client goals and I-CAN’s goals. Student
teams work with their community agencies to identify health issues and obstacles of their
clients.  • Formative and summative assessments will be performed throughout the term. Evaluation
• Present:Interdisciplinary Students and I-CAN advisor
• Discussion: Students and advisor discuss any updates or plans on clients, projects for
this program, and if they need to further inquire certain faculty about client details.
• Importance:Due to limited participation time for dietetic interns, this provides an
opportunity for the interdisciplinary students to collaborate,be on the same page, and
plan their client visits.
Huddle: Second Meeting
• Present:Interdisciplinary Students, I-CAN advisor,and organization faculty
• Discussion: All participating members provide updates on clients, their plan, and
collaborate to see if more efforts to provide care are needed. 
• Importance:All members are able to bring together information collected from clients
to see if there are other ideas and approaches to help the client more.
Client Visitation
• Present:Interdisciplinary Students and I-CAN advisor (first visit only)
• Discussion: Students consult, collect initial assessment information, and help clients
with their goals that they want to accomplish through this program.
• Importance:Students work together to help clients with their social determinants of
health (ex: transportation, scheduling appointments, insurance, and basic health
questions).
Figure 4.  The I-CAN program works with weekly meetings to provide the best care and
create a more wholesome background of clients and their needs.  • Involving dietetic interns is new to I-CAN and can benefit from creating materials for future
FINDINGS:
The purpose of this project is to incorporate nutrition into the care of I-CAN
clients through dietetic interns and promote its significance through education. 
Importance of nutrition has been noted with current interdisciplinary team members and clients.
• Nursing Student: “I think it is so cool to have another discipline on our team. I’m not quite sure
how the home visits are going to go, since I have never done one with a different discipline,
but I’m excited to get started!”
• Client 1: “Nutrition is very important to me and I know I need to make improvements.”
• Client 2: “Nutrition is really important in my life. It never used to be, but now it is based on
my medical conditions."
little to no nutrition education or knowledge. Our implementation is to provide a greater
understanding to combat social determinants of health and emphasize the importance of
nutrition with team members.
IMPLEMENTATION:
Recommendations for Future Dietetic Interns:
• Current dietetic interns will outline their relevant findings and experiences during their time
in the program. These ideas and areas for improvement will be compiled into
recommendation sheets. These sheets will be provided for future dietetic interns and should
be updated for each term. If issues are no longer present, they will be eliminated from the
an editable Microsoft Word document to OHSU Box. This will be shared with each incoming
dietetic intern for the I-CAN program.
Creation of Role Sheets: 
• Defined roles of community project advisor/mentor, I-CAN instructor, student interdiscipline
members, and organization participants (organization leaders, family advocates, I-CAN
consultants, etc). Descriptions include their role in the team, what they can be consulted for,
However, these sheets will be made to define their role in each community organizing
 
EVALUATION AND EFFICACY:
Evaluation: 
incorporation of dietetic interns into the I-CAN program.
• Summative assessments will include a pre- and post-assessment. These questions are aimed
to see how the population sees the relevance of nutrition materials and advisement provided.
The same questions will be asked at the beginning of the term and the end of the term to
determine if there is any change in the participants’ minds. Since participants vary from team
members to clients, client visitations will be used for clientele assessments and huddles will
be used for team member assessments. Questions asked will include:
• How do you see nutrition as a part of a care plan for clients?
• What is your knowledge basis of nutrition thus far?
• On a scale of 1-10, 1 being low and 10 being high, how relevant is nutrition
education and advisement. More specifically, in the community population?
• Formative evaluation will take place throughout the term. Evaluation of proposed nutrition
education topics will be discussed by inquiring about relevancy to the participants. Questions
will also ask about how topics were taught. Similarly to summative assessments, evaluations
will be performed the same way with the different participant populations. 
• All evaluation methods will be conducted verbally. This is to maintain an informal setting for
an open environment for participants to contribute in. Dietetic interns are to record
responses as they deem necessary to further develop the project and prove relevancy. 
Efficacy:
• In order to ensure that this project is sustainably maintained, further dietetic intern cohorts
are needed to carry on and adjust the needs. Evaluations noted have shown the importance
of nutrition is high, but there are still several barriers to make nutrition a more prominent
consideration and part of the interdisciplinary teams. 
CONCLUSIONS:
• The I-CAN program works to teach students about how to work as an interdisciplinary teams
through involving OHSU students. 
• As the program expands, students, faculty, and clients will benefit from nutrition education.
incorporation.