Innovative Academic Health Center AIM Program Launches Next Phase

Washington, DC, April 13, 2017 -- WASHINGTON, April 13 – The Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC), in conjunction with its international subsidiary AAHCI, is pleased to announce the next phase of its groundbreaking Aligned Institutional Mission (AIM) Program, a means for academic health centers around the world to optimize and measure the alignment of their education, research, and patient care missions.

“AAHC/AAHCI successfully completed the Development Phase of this innovative program and is ready to move forward with the pivotal Pilot Phase that will test and refine program elements to prepare AIM for a full global launch,” said Steven A. Wartman, MD, PhD, AAHC president and CEO. “The feedback we have received from the Development Phase institutions has been outstanding. This pioneering program assists academic health centers on an individualized basis to optimally align their mission components to help create learning health systems for the 21^st century.”

The Pilot Phase of the program includes seven sites: East Tennessee State (USA), Florida International University (USA), Semmelweis University (Hungary), University of Kansas (USA), University of Malaya (Malaysia), University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and University of Queensland-Brisbane Diamantina Health Partners (Australia). Following the completion of the Pilot Phase, the association plans a full-scale roll-out to all members in 2018. 

The AIM program works closely with a distinguished group of consultants, all of whom have had extensive experience in leadership positions with academic health centers:

• Frank Cerra, MD, emeritus professor, Department of Surgery, University of Minnesota (former senior vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical school, University of Minnesota)
• Nancy Dickey, MD, executive director, Rural & Community Health Institute and president emeritus, Texas A&M Health Science Center (former president and vice chancellor for health affairs, Texas A&M Health Science Center)
• Edward Hillhouse, PhD, BSC, MBBS, professor of medicine, Cornell University (former faculty dean, University of Leeds, and chief policy advisor on academic health systems, Hamad Medical Corporation)
• Sten Lindahl, MD, PhD, professor, Karolinska Institutet (former director of research and education, Karolinska University Hospital)
• Harold Maurer, MD, chancellor emeritus, University of Nebraska Medical Center (former chancellor of UNMC)
• John McConnell, MD, former CEO, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
• Charles Rice, MD, president emeritus, Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences (former president of the USUHS)
• Jean Robillard, MD, vice president for medical affairs, dean, Carver College of Medicine, The University of Iowa
• Barbara Ross-Lee, DO, vice president, health sciences and medical affairs, New York Institute of Technology
• Arthur Rubenstein, MBBCh, professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology at the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania (former executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the School of Medicine

• Larry Shapiro, MD, Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished University Professor, Washington University School of Medicine (former executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of Washington University School of Medicine)
• Peter Smith, MD, emeritus professor of medicine, and former dean, The University of New South Wales
• Gavin Stuart, MD, vice-provost health, The University of British Columbia
• Harold Williamson, MD, MSPH, emeritus professor, University of Missouri (former executive vice chancellor for health affairs, University of Missouri) 

“The AIM Program offers participating institutions a program tool for internal assessment and goal setting; a peer consultant review period; and peer consultant recommendations and strategic improvement planning,” said Wartman.

“Participating in the AIM program offered UAMS a valuable opportunity to assess its programs specifically within the framework of how they align our institution with our stated health improvement mission,” said Dan Rahn, MD, chancellor of the University of Arkansas Medical School (an institution that participated in the Development Phase of the program), adding “[u]sing the AIM assessment tool and then hosting a constructive site visit connected all of those changes into a coherent story that illustrates how we moved from our strategic vision to reengineering how we deliver care, manage data, ensure sustainability, align education, research and patient care, and ultimately impact population health.”

AAHC is a non-profit association dedicated to advancing health and well-being through the vigorous leadership of academic health centers.

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Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8bb6f932-b76b-43d3-9f00-a8a09bcea085

Christine Smith
Association of Academic Health Centers
202-265-9600
[email protected]