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Kilpatrick, Kern chosen for AHA fellowshipMUSC’s Anne Osborne Kilpatrick, DPA, and Donna Kern, M.D., are among four South Carolinians chosen to participate in the American Hospital Association Health Forum's award-winning Creating Healthier Communities Fellowship program.
This year's fellowship class is comprised of 50 health care, business and community leaders from across the country selected through a competitive application process. The new class of fellows represents 19 states plus Canada. The class is a cross-section of community life and includes health care executives, business and educational professionals, government leaders and public health officials. As part of the fellowship requirements, each participant designs and implements an action learning project. Kilpatrick, in the Department of Health Administration and Policy, and Kern with the Department of Family Medicine and College of Medicine Dean's Office, will be collaborating with a library team here at MUSC to create a web-based patient health information center that is specifically tailored to South Carolinians. The website will address the state’s most pressing health needs, as well as provide patients with health promotion and disease prevention information in a way that honors individual and cultural preferences. Their project is sponsored by the Duke Endowment, which has a history of sponsoring MUSC projects that aim to improve the health status of citizens of North and South Carolina. The endowment supports these efforts primarily through affiliations with Carolina hospitals and has supported the Health Forum effort to build leaders since its founding of the Creating Healthy Communities Fellowship program. “It is our goal to inform and empower patients. When people understand health issues better, they can manage their own care more effectively,” Kern said. Additionally, the new class includes three community teams, representing unique partnerships between health systems and local organizations committed to improving the health and well-being of their communities. The Creating Healthier Communities Fellowship, now in its eighth year, provides leadership development opportunities through a powerful combination of leading-edge faculty, specially designed curriculum and field-based projects. The fellowship program combines face-to-face leadership retreats, self-study educational curriculum, online computer conferencing and site visits. “The leadership skills we acquire and the networks we establish provide needed support for present and future collaborative efforts,” Kilpatrick said. “This benefits our state’s residents and increases the learning in our institution.” Health Forum is the new enterprise created through the union of The Healthcare Forum and the American Hospital Association’s publishing and data information subsidiaries. Health Forum offers health care leaders access to new information and fresh ideas which they can use to strengthen their organization's clinical and business performance. Health Forum's website http://www.healthforum.com
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Drs.
Donna Kern, left, and Anne Osborne Kilpatrick.