Practicum Highlight: Amrah Hasan, MPH ’25

Standardizing OPAT Candidacy Assessment to Improve Care Transitions

As a physician, Amrah Hasan, MPH ’25, entered Dartmouth’s Hybrid Master of Public Health program with a deep interest in systems-level quality improvement and a desire to strengthen her ability to implement meaningful change in clinical settings. Her practicum project focused on optimizing the delivery of Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (OPAT) at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center by creating a more consistent, patient-centered evaluation process for determining OPAT eligibility.

OPAT allows patients to complete long-term intravenous antibiotic treatment outside of the hospital, offering significant benefits in quality of life and cost savings. However, selecting the right patients for OPAT is critical to ensuring safe and successful outcomes. At Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Amrah sought to standardize the process of assessing OPAT candidacy to avoid inconsistent evaluations, communication gaps, and discharge delays.

Drawing on skills developed during her MPH coursework, Amrah led a multidisciplinary quality improvement initiative aimed at standardizing OPAT candidacy assessments. She conducted a REDCap survey of 17 infectious disease providers and facilitated interviews and focus groups with nurses, case managers, and infusion service staff. The findings revealed wide variability in how clinicians evaluated key factors such as patients’ ability to self-administer medications, availability of home refrigeration, transportation access, and insurance coverage. Only 41% of providers routinely assessed access to refrigeration, and just 30% consistently considered financial barriers to treatment.

In response, Amrah developed a standardized checklist designed to ensure comprehensive, equitable, and consistent OPAT evaluations. Tailored to the institution’s workflow, the tool was built for integration into the electronic medical record (EMR), allowing for real-time updates during hospitalization.

The checklist is currently being implemented with outcome measures that include completion rates, discharge volumes, treatment success, and readmission rates. The goal is to enhance communication, streamline care transitions, and improve patient outcomes, not only at Dartmouth-Hitchcock but potentially at other institutions facing similar challenges.

Reflecting on her time in the program, Amrah shares:

“I enjoyed my time at Dartmouth immensely. In addition to learning a great deal from the outstanding faculty, I also made friends who I will cherish for life. One of the best parts about being a student in the hybrid MPH program was having the opportunity to learn from my peers. This made for a rich experience that deepened my understanding of the healthcare system, as different viewpoints, lived experiences, and opinions were actively encouraged in each course. I learned the power of using your voice to empower others and co-create better healthcare for all.”

Written by: Mia Soucy

POSTED 7/23/2025 AT 02:49 PM IN #practicum #mph #2025