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Challenge Grant Update CHHS alumni and students made it happen! We reached the goal of 150 donors and will receive $15,000 for priority needs. Thank you for your support.
CHHS News Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics Center for Study of Chronic Illness and Disability College of Health and Human Services Department of Global and Community Health Department of Health Administration and Policy
CHHS Events
Who's Who at
HAP P.
J. Maddox
Assisted Living Administration
Concentration Advisor Health Systems
Management Concentration Advisor
Graduate Programs
Dr. PJ
Maddox
Health
Systems Management, MS Health
Information Systems Management Concentration Advisor Master's International Joint
Program with Peace Corps Advisor Risk
Management and Patient Safety Concentration Advisor Security & Privacy
Concentration Advisor Master of Public Health, MPH Senior Housing Administration,
MS
General Inquiries mph@gmu.edu (703) 993-3126 (703) 993-1850
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Dirt
on the Grape, the Next Course
Saturday, October 2 $15/alumni; $10/additional guests The CHHS Alumni Chapter Board invites CHHS alumni and guests to re-connect with friends and colleagues and enjoy an evening of socializing. Sommelier Mary Watson-DeLauder returns and joins Chef Sandy Amato (Owner, Cooking with Sandy) to educate and tantalize your taste buds with desserts and dessert wines. For more information on the Dirt on the Grape, the Next Course, contact CHHS at (703) 993-6018. You can also view photos from last year's event. Dirt on the Grape, the Next Course is held in conjunction with Alumni Weekend. Registration for all events is now open.
Health Administration and Policy Alumni Affinity
Meeting Saturday, October 2 The second Health Administration and Policy Alumni Affinity event will take place Saturday, October 2 as part of Alumni Weekend. Dr. Len Nichols, director of the Health Policy Research & Ethics Center, is a highlighted speaker for the event, discussing hot topics in management, technology and other health management related issues. For additional information contact us at (703) 993-6018. At the April 1 HAP Alumni Affinity meeting, Harry Greenspun, MD, CHHS Advisory Board member and chief medical officer of Dell Systems, made a presentation to the department’s alumni and faculty. After the formal presentations, he was able to meet with one of the attendees, a recent graduate of the Department of Health Administration and Policy. Dr. Greenspun made the following comment after the meeting: "Despite softness in other areas of the economy, demand for well-prepared personnel to meet the needs of health care and health IT roles is growing rapidly. As a senior executive at the largest provider of health IT services worldwide, I feel this pressure particularly acutely. Faced with a critical open role, our recruiters tapped into our worldwide network of potential candidates. George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services was able to provide one immediately who met all my criteria of education and experience. Within two weeks, I had an outstanding new member of my team with the skills and energy needed in such an important role."
Spotlight
on Alumni Hina
Ali, MS '09 Hina Ali is a 2009 graduate of the Health Systems Management program, with a concentration in Executive Management. She began working for Town Center Family Medicine, which is a part of Fairfax Family Practice Centers. Fairfax Family Practice has been in business for 35 years and serves about a quarter of a million of Northern Virginia's population and serves as their primary care physician. Ali was one of the managers at Town Center Family Medicine. During her time there she not only helped manage the office but she also worked on marketing strategies, financial analysis and conducted analysis on the practice's return on investment (ROI), conducted corporate level meetings for Fairfax Family Practice's clerical supervisors and office managers, and trained all administrative staff in the practice. “My biggest accomplishment was that I was brought on
to implement policies and procedures into an office that had none and
basically helped to restart a practice that was failing," said Ali. She
increased its revenues and collected $120,000 in
patient debts. She worked at TCFM from January 2009 - July 2010,
where she also had the privilege of being a preceptor for a Mason student
during their capstone practicum project (HAP 790). “This is an exciting time for INOVA and me as we will be setting the standards for other practices that INOVA will be opening in the future.”
Let Us Hear from You We would like to hear from HAP alumni about career moves, accomplishments, and recognitions. Please email us and we will post it in the next edition of the Alumni E-news. To update contact information with the Mason Alumni Association, visit the MASONline Alumni Directory.
CHHS Alumni Chapter Board The Alumni Chapter Board was established for the educational, professional and social purposes of its members and to support goals and objectives of its members and to support the goals and objectives of George Mason University, the College of Health and Human Services and the Mason Alumni Association. The CHHS Alumni Chapter events throughout the year target social, educational, and networking needs of alumni. In the fall, the Chapter hosts a signature event, in conjunction with Mason's Alumni Weekend. Throughout the rest of the year, chapter events are held to keep you in touch with the latest findings in health care and provide networking opportunities with other CHHS alumni and faculty. Meet the Alumni Chapter Board members: Lisa Callahan, BS '03,
MSW '04
Callahan enjoys relaxing with gardening, bird watching, reading, knitting, and antiquing. She enjoys reading books by Stieg Larsson including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A favorite eating place is Aladdin Restaurant in Burke where she enjoys hummus, lentil soup and mint tea.
Lori McLean has lived in the Fairfax area for 30 years. She is a family nurse practitioner for Fairfax County Health Department and has been in this position for four years. She also worked for the county health department for nine years earlier in her career. McLean was an adjunct faculty member of the School of Nursing for four years, teaching to undergraduate nursing students. She has been involved with Alumni Chapter Board for several years. When McLean received her MSN in 1996, she felt “Patriot Pride” as she participated in the commencement ceremony. Joining fellow students and faculty, as family and friends looked on with encouragement, “I felt so 100% Mason,” she said. In her free time, McLean enjoys reading, traveling, and daydreaming about retirement. She enjoys books by James Michener and John Grisham. She cheers for her favorite Boston teams –Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots, and it goes without saying she is a proud Mason Patriot fan. Her favorite restaurants are Italian and she rates the newly opened Mason Inn as a “fabulous dining experience.”
Bridget Nesko, BSN
'06 Bridget Nesko currently works part-time and has served as healthcare legislative and policy advisor to various political candidates, including those seeking office in the U.S. Congress, the Virginia State House of Delegates and the U.S. Presidency. Nesko graduated from George Mason University School of Nursing in 2006, receiving the Kitty Parker Leadership Award at graduation. She has served on the Board since 2006. Nesko was introduced to the alumni chapter when a previous instructor invited her to an alumni event. She thoroughly enjoys the networking and social opportunities of an active alumna with the college. Nesko loves mingling with new grads to encourage them professionally and to hopefully share the many perks of being a member of the CHHS Alumni Chapter. Nesko's hobbies include reading, cooking, politics, walking, and anything having to do with sand and surf. Her favorite dining spot is Pulcinella, a quaint Italian restaurant located in McLean, Virginia.
Kathleen Ross, MSW '08 Kathleen Ross’s position with the board gives her an opportunity to keep in touch with Mason alumni. This past spring she represented the Alumni Chapter Board at the Social Work MSW presentations. Ross said, “I was impressed by the creativity and professionalism of the projects.” She also attended last year’s CHHS Signature Alumni Event, Dirt on the Grape. “I also truly enjoyed meeting some phenomenal people at the Dirt on the Grape event.” Ross teaches adaptive swimming classes for children with disabilities, and loves seeing someone grow to be safe and have fun in the water. In her leisure time, she enjoys swimming, walking, tasting wines, spending time with her almost one year old, Alexander, and her husband, Keel. Ross and her husband enjoy ethnic restaurants, and their favorites are Thai Basil and Picante in Chantilly, Virginia. She also enjoys reading and her favorite book is The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell.
Bette Burch, BSN '80 Bette Burch enjoys her position with the board and eagerly looks forward to attending Mason’s scholarship and awards receptions to keep in touch with students and alumni. This past year, Bette was featured in an article on the Mason website at a scholarship reception held on March 31. The annual event provided an opportunity for donors to meet the students who benefit from their gifts and for students to thank donors for their generosity. Nursing major Augusto Paredes-Ubillus, spoke to guests about receiving the Bette Burch Scholarship Endowment. Burch has generously supported scholarships for School of Nursing students since 1997. Burch is happily retired and enjoys knitting and reading. Her favorite food is seafood and enjoys dining at Coastal Flats and Sweetwater Tavern.
Robin Patton BS '81, CERG
'06 Robin Patton has been a member of the Fairfax Community and has been employed by the County of Fairfax for 25 years. She is currently the director of the land acquisition division for the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. She is a valuable member of the Alumni Chapter Board and says, “I’ve always enjoyed coming back to the campus and seeing all the growth and changes! I continue to feel connected to GMU and I hope other alumni will enjoy staying connected.” Patton lives with her husband, Jay, in Annandale and in her leisure time, enjoys reading, cooking, visiting the Eastern Shore, and watching old movie classics.
Bita Hassannia BS '09 Bita Hassannia is a recent alumna of Mason and graduated from the Department of Health Administration and Policy. "I attended several alumni events which all made me feel part of a community that was filled with sense of belonging to a group of people who had a common root of GMU education. The first event I attended was an alumni dinner boat outing in Old Town Alexandria, then the wonderful event of the Dirt on the Grape. It was at that event I realized how great it was to be an alumna and to stay in touch with CHHS, and I decided to become a board member." In her leisure time, Hassannia enjoys yoga, biking, running, reading, and cooking. Her favorite foods include sushi, Thai, Italian, and most of the Middle Eastern cuisines. Her favorite book selections are The Da Vinci Code and Eat, Pray and Love.
Sodhi has
two adult children who live in Georgia and she is “re-developing” herself.
Her leisure time activities include playing in a Fairfax women's soccer
league, taking golf lessons, and trying to get into tennis. She is looking
for people to explore the area with and introduce her to good,
non-tourist spots in the D.C. area. She loves to travel and looks forward
in continuing to broaden her understanding of different cultures.
College News Reston Hospital Donation Names Healthcare Technologies Innovation Lab Reston Hospital Center has donated $50,000 to Mason’s College of Health and Human Services (CHHS). As a result, the college will honor the hospital by naming the Reston Hospital Center Healthcare Technologies Innovation Lab. The naming gift was announced at the May 12 graduating nurses’ pinning ceremony, which was also sponsored by the organization. "Giving back is something important to all of us at Reston Hospital Center, but this gift is all the more special to me," said Cindy Glover, RN, BSN '77, vice president and chief nursing officer at Reston Hospital Center. "As an alumna of George Mason, I’m proud to give back to a university that has helped me achieve so much in my own career and that has had such a positive impact on the nursing workforce at Reston." Pictured above (left to right): Robin Remsburg, Cindy Glover, Shirley Travis
Students Receiving Department Awards at May Commencement Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Health Administration Michelle C. Willcox, BS Undergrduate Excellence in Writing
Award Graduate Award for Excellence in Assisted
Living/Senior Housing Administration Graduate Award for Excellence in Executive
Management Graduate Award for Excellence in Health
Policy
Graduate Award for Excellence in Information
Systems
Management
Association of
University Programs in Health Administration Bugbee/Falk Book
Award
Faculty Receiving Department Awards at May
Commencement & College of Health and Human Services Master Teacher Award Martin Perlin, PhD, Associate Professor
New Faculty Lorens A. Helmchen, Ph.D. Lorens A. Helmchen, Ph.D., joins George Mason University as an associate professor in the College of Health and Human Services after concluding a year as a visiting fellow in health and aging research at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Before joining Mason, he taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago. At Mason, he will be teaching courses on health economics and health services research methods. In his research, Dr. Helmchen studies mechanisms that improve quality transparency in health care and patients’ incentives to choose effective medical treatment. Dr. Helmchen is a co-investigator on a $3 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that aims to evaluate how the disclosure of medical errors affects patients’ likelihood to sue and receive compensation, and their assessment of the quality of care. Dr. Helmchen is also studying the potential of provider-issued outcome warranties, which would insure policyholders against easily verifiable adverse treatment outcomes, such as remission after cancer therapy or 30-day survival after undergoing heart bypass surgery. In a related project, he is exploring how negative co-payments might improve existing insurance benefits: instead of paying more for more costly treatment, beneficiaries would get paid for choosing less costly treatment. Dr. Helmchen has published in leading field journals such as Health Economics, Medical Care, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Southern Economic Journal, Quality and Safety in Healthcare, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Helmchen earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in economics from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. He also was a visiting graduate student at the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Economique in Paris and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Faculty News Award for Dr. Meiners' TEAM SAN DIEGO Project Dr. Mark Meiners received the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (N4A) Innovation Award for Health Aging at its St. Louis meeting July 15-17. The TEAM SAN DIEGO project is an eight-module online class designed to train physicians, their office staff, and community health and social service providers to work together as a “virtual team"; assist providers in helping their patients effectively participate in managing their own health and health care outcomes; and provide easy access to community resources available to patients and their caregivers. Watch a video overview of TEAM SAN DIEGO.
Dr. Martin Perlin Awarded Master Teacher of the Year and Habit of Excellence Awards by CHHS Dr. Martin Perlin has been awarded two prestigious awards by Mason and CHHS, the Master Teacher of the Year and the Habit of Excellence awards. Dr. Perlin was recognized for two important pieces of work. First, he was a key member of the university QEP task force, which laid the groundwork for selecting the new QEP emphasis at Mason. His commitment and engagement in the task force was appreciated by all who served with him. Dr. Perlin also played a major role in designing and implementing a curriculum mapping process and program evaluation procedures for the highly successful accreditation of the graduate program in Health Systems Management, Executive Management. His department, the college, and the university have been served well by his habit of excellence.
Department Events
HAP Seminar Series In 2008 the department began a
monthly lecture series (organized by Dr. Jack Hadley) of timely topics and
hot issues in health systems and policy for faculty, staff and students of
Mason and professional colleagues in the community. The 2009-2010 series
featured topics such as "Charitable Expectations for Nonprofit Hospitals,"
"The Patient-Centered Medical Home Model," and "What’s So Different About
Health Insurance?. " The fall 2010 HAP Seminar Series will begin again in late September, details TBA. For more information on the HAP Seminar Series visit the website and click on the HAP Seminar Series button on the left, or contact Adam McCutcheon. Our alumni and their work colleagues are always welcome and encouraged to participate.
HAP Hosts Best Selling Author Gail Sheehy for Book Signing and Expert Panel
Event Pictured above (left to right): Buckley Fricker, Gail Sheehy, Andrew Carle
2010 Quality Improvement of the Year Award Winners By Marjorie Musick The Department of Health Administration and Policy in the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) announced the winners of its annual Quality Improvement of the Year Awards at a banquet on April 22. More than 160 students, faculty, staff and community health care leaders attended the event. Mary Wakefield, federal Health Resources and Services Administration administrator and former Mason faculty member, served as the keynote speaker. This competitive award was created to recognize the work being achieved by teams from Mid-Atlantic health organizations that are improving the quality and safety of health care. This year, 14 projects were nominated. Pictured above: P.J. Maddox, chair of the Department of Health Administration and Policy Pictured above (left to right): Dean Shirley Travis, Mary Wakefield, Leo Brennan, chair of the CHHS Advisory Board. 2010 award winners and their projects are:
Faculty Presentations/Publications/Research The HAP faculty continues to extend their reach in the healthcare field by reaching a series of topics and issues in their research and professional pursuits. Selected highlights from some of their research, publications and professional endeavors are listed below. John Cantiello Poster Presentation:"Using News in the Classroom: How to Incorporate YouTube into Lesson Plans," June, AUPHA Annual Meeting. Accepted Publications: "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Lessons Learned from Physicians Who Have Gone Electronic," has recently been accepted for publication by The Health Care Manager (November 2010).
Andrew Carle New York
Association of Homes & Services for the Aging Oregon Alliance of Senior and
Health Services
William Cartwright
American Society of Health Economists, June 20-23, 2010 Ithaca, New York.
Lisa
Eckenwiler Other presentations:“Care Labor Migration and Feminist Conceptions of Global Justice,” Workshop on Feminist Ethics and Global Justice, Canadian Philosophical Association, Montreal, Quebec, May 30-June 2, 2010. Forthcoming/accepted presentations:“A Conception of Global Justice for Public Health,” American Public Health Association, Denver, Colorado, forthcoming fall 2010. “Health Care Migrations: Moral Communities, Moral Obligations,” American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, San Diego, California, forthcoming fall 2010. Funded projects: With Ivy Bourgeault, Ron Labonte et al., Source Country Perspectives on the Migration of Highly Trained Health Personnel: Causes, Consequences, and Responses, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, 2010-2015 (funded this past June).
Lorens
Helmchen Funded projects: McDonald T (PI), Helmchen L (Co-I) et al. “The Seven Pillars: Crossing the Patient Safety-Medical Liability Chasm.” Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). 09/30/10 – 09/29/13. $2,999,957. Conference presentations: Harvard University Department of Health Care Policy, 26 April 2010, Boston, MA. 20th Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association, 7 May 2010, Princeton, New Jersey. First Annual Midwestern Health Economics Study Group Conference, Chicago, Illinois, May 13-14, 2010. 3rd Biennial Conference of the American Society of Health Economists, June 20-23, 2010, Ithaca, New York.
Martin
Perlin
Upsilon Phi Delta National Honor Society The department has started a Mason chapter of the Upsilon Phi Delta National Honor Society for HAP undergraduate and graduate students and recent alumni. Upsilon Phi Delta is a national academic honor society for students in health administration. The Association of University Programs in Health Administration sponsors UPD to enable academic programs in Health Administration/Healthcare Management to enrich their student’s academic experience. Criteria for membership include:
Members receive a lifetime affiliation with UPD with a one-time membership fee of $40. For additional information, contact the UPD faculty advisor, Dr. Alison Cuellar. |
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