Although social workers are frequently part of interdisciplinary teams in health care and community settings, interdisciplinary training is often lacking in social work education (Berg-Weger & Schneider, 1998). This article describes a study of the effects of an interdisciplinary community-based experiential course preparing new health care professionals for work as part of interdisciplinary teams. The interdisciplinary curriculum was established for a summer course taught in 2006 by faculty from five disciplines: social work, nutrition, medicine, nursing, and public health. The course, Quality Improvement in Rural Healthcare, which focused on health literacy in people with a diagnosis of diabetes that live in northeast Tennessee, provided a model environment for learning interdisciplinary teamwork. Evaluation of this course found that social work students displayed a statistically significant increase in positive attitude toward interdisciplinary teamwork. Course strengths, weaknesses, obstacles, and opportunities for curriculum improvement are elaborated.

A healthy population, therefore, may be defined as one that safeguards the health of its members. The health of the population may be a resource for the well-being of its members. Any development process must take into account health. Cardiovascular diseases form the major component of chronic diseases and therefore contribute most to the economic impact: these strike individuals in their productive ages, need high treatment costs and result in premature deaths. Patients place importance on the caliber of services and take into account a variety of factor in the selection of hospital such as the availability of the competent specialists, the reputation of the hospital, professional management, range of services offered, availability of latest technology and equipment, cost and convenience, proximity to home, courteous behaviour of staff and professionalized care.