UAB hosts international Health Care Innovation Education Conference

The conference will feature lectures and panel discussions on innovation education in topics such as informatics, executive education, health care delivery, insurance, technology, global health and nursing management

health care conferenceThe University of Alabama at Birmingham, in collaboration with Harvard University and Duke University, will host the Global Educators Network for Health Care Innovation Education Conference from May 6-8. The international conference will draw senior leadership from health care institutions and companies along with top academicians in health care innovation.

The conference will feature lectures and panel discussions on innovation education in topics such as informatics, executive education, health care delivery, insurance, technology, global health and nursing management.

Opportunities for UAB faculty and staff to interact with conference attendees are scheduled throughout the conference, including an opening reception at the Edge of Chaos on May 6, dinner May 7 and small group gatherings interspersed during the meeting sessions.

Organizers say that, despite increasing financial, human resource and infrastructural investments, along with advancing technology, health care continues to be plagued with inefficiencies, high costs and complex problems ranging from erratic quality to unequal access. Addressing this growing gap will require novel approaches to the reconceptualization of health and health care delivery.

“CEOs of health care organizations need managers who are creative, innovative and entrepreneurial; but graduate training programs often do not equip graduates to meet the challenges for innovation of 21st century health,” said Rubin Pillay, Ph.D., M.D., professor in the UAB Collat School of Business and assistant dean for Global Health Innovation in the School of Medicine. “The main purpose of this conference is to help bridge the disconnect between what the market needs and wants and what training programs offer, by helping to foster and facilitate models for innovation education and training in health care. It will bring together about 120 world leaders in the field to help map out strategies to accomplish these goals.”

For more information on faculty involvement, contact Pillay at rpillay@uab.edu.