The Health Science Center’s Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice (ACE) is please to announce its fifth annual Summer Institute on Evidence-Based Practice will be held June 29 – July 1 at the Crowne Plaza Riverwalk Hotel. Pre-conferences begin June 28. This year’s theme is “Quality Improvement, Quality Indicators” and it reflects the new movement to standardize quality and safety benchmarks for the nation.
This unique annual conference was initiated by the ACE program in 2002 and has become one of the most prominent evidence-based practice (EBP) conferences nationwide, with participation increasing by at least 10 percent each year. Faculty members and students are encouraged to attend.
With four years of funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), this interdisciplinary conference emphasizes the cultivation of EBP environments through organizational and individual changes.
“The evidence-based quality improvement movement has changed public awareness nationally,” said Kathleen Stevens, R.N., Ed.D., F.A.A.N., director of the ACE program and co-chair of the program committee. “It’s changing the level of accountability that health professionals have for safety and quality of health care.”
Both the AHRQ and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) have issued nationwide calls for evidence-based quality improvement. To meet this initiative, institute attendees will be equipped with pragmatic, foundational and intermediate EBP skills, with a specific emphasis on strategies for practice improvement, organizational change, team building, and usage of EBP resources.
“To prepare the workforce of the future, as faculty we need to assume that our students exit our programs with confidence in evidence-based quality improvement,” Dr. Stevens said.
Clinicians, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, librarians, researchers, educators, and administrators and managers from around the nation will gather to participate in hands-on situations, and view state-of-the-art presentations and abstracts that will help advance their skills in the field of EBP.
Some of the presenters include:
• Beth A. Collins Sharp, Ph.D., R.N., acting director of the EBP Center program and center for outcomes and evidence at the AHRQ, who will open the conference addressing “The Power Triad of Evidence, Quality and Outcomes;”
• Robert L. Ferrer, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of family and community medicine at the Health Science Center, who will discuss the “Great Adventures in Improving Care: From Science to Systems;”
• Carlos Jaén, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the Center for Research in Family Medicine and professor and chair of family and community medicine, who will discuss “Researcher’s Circle: Growing Our Knowledge Base about Employing EBP: Health Services Research Approaches;”
• Margaret (Peg) Allen, M.L.S.-A.H.I.P, library consultant, Cinahl Information Systems and Hmong Health Education Network, will give a unique presentation called “Teaching Clinicians to Fish: Library Skills for EBP.”
“EBP has been one of the major transformations in health care,” Dr. Ferrer, who is also a member of the 2006 Summer Institute Program Committee, said. “It's no longer ok to disseminate a guideline or practice recommendation without describing how it was created. Attendees learn about new ideas in EBP and can see examples of successful programs across the country. EBP leaders help those who attend to understand the current environment and anticipate future directions.”
Among the other presenters are Laurie A. Weiss, J.D., M.B.A., B.S.E., partner of Fulbright and Jaworski, LLP, Medical Malpractice and Health Care. Her presentation will include discussion on “If it’s Evidence-Based, Can I Still Be Sued?” This will be a popular topic of interest to many attendees. The closing keynote, given by James Conway, M.S., senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, senior consultant at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and board chair of the Health Care Dimensions Hospice, will be “The Force for Patient Safety – Health Care Leaders.”
“The topics are cutting edge and extremely knowledgeable individuals will be presenting them,” Dr. Stevens said.
Interactive presentations will include topics such as: Preventing Falls, Moving Evidence In Acute Care, and Diabetes – Chronic Care Challenges.
Participants will learn to use evidence to improve clinical care and will learn about outcomes measurement, infrastructure development, research evidence available for national priority clinical conditions, and impact of EBP on selected roles within the health professions.
This year features two pre-conferences on June 28: The Educator’s EPB Workshop and Essential Elements of EBP – an introduction for first time attendees. Also, there will be a graduate-level post conference for advanced learning in EBP.
Registration is open to Health Science Center faculty and students at a discounted rate. All are encouraged to register no later than June 14.
Continuing education credit is available. For more information on the conference, or to register, visit:
www.acestar.uthscsa.edu.
The 2006 Summer Institute Program Committee is a city-wide, interdisciplinary group including clinicians, faculty members, doctoral students, librarians, administrators, and military and hospital personnel.
