April 24, 2007

MINUTES
University of Minnesota
Academic Health Center
Deans Council
April 24, 2007

The regular meeting of the Deans of the Academic Health Center was held on Tuesday, April 24 at 2:00 p.m. in 475 ChRC.

Members present:
Frank Cerra, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences
Connie Delaney, Dean, School of Nursing
Patrick Lloyd, Dean, School of Dentistry
Deborah Powell, Deans, Medical School
Marilyn Speedie, Dean, College of Pharmacy
Linda Watson, Director, Health Sciences Libraries

Staff present:
Terry Bock, Chief of Staff
Jennifer Cieslak, Special Assistant to the Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, AHC
Beth Nunnally, Chief Financial Officer, AHC
Mark Paller, Assistant Vice President, Office of Research

Guests Present
Jasjit Ahluwalia, Executive Director, Office of Clinical Research, AHC
Gwen Halaas, Director of Interprofessional Education
Tracy Hanson, Health Professional Student, School of Public Health
Sue Jackson, Director, Student Health Benefits
Gina Kundan, Director, Center for Health Interprofessional Programs (CHIP)
Sue Van Voorhis, Director, Academic Support Resources

Clarion National Case Competition
Gina Kundan, Gwen Halaas, and Tracy Hanson discussed the 2007 Clarion Interprofessional Team Case Competition.  Clarion is a University of Minnesota student organization dedicated to interprofessional education.  Since 2002, Clarion has hosted the U of M local student case competition for health professional students.  Student teams, consisting of four students comprised of at least two disciplines, are presented and charged with analysis of a case.  Tracy Hanson commented that students want a good experience and ways to compete nationally. She said that although the University of Minnesota team had very strong content, they were not as polished on the presentation skills.  She felt they have to continue to work on the delivery aspect of the case competition.  Tracy also felt that it would beneficial to move up the date for the local competition so there is time to work on preparing for the national competition.  Gina Kundan commented that the challenge is to increase the interest and involvement from international teams.  Gina said there would be a student report by the end of the year. Frank Cerra stated that the Clarion student organization needs to have a sponsor and a financial model.  He suggested that they submit a proposal, including student goals and outcomes, and financial requests, to Barbara Brandt.  The proposal will then be discussed with the deans.

Health Professional Student Dental Benefits
Frank Cerra stated that it has been difficult to procure dental services for health professional students, but there is an opportunity to do so at Boynton Health Service.  Sue Jackson reviewed Boynton Health Service’s proposal to provide the preventive services of dental exam, adult prophylaxis every 6 months, and dental x-rays at a cost of $36 per semester.  The Deans approved the dental benefits for health professional students.

AHC Dual Degree/Dual Career Pilot Evalution
Sue Van Voorhis reported that the AHC Dual Degree/Career pilot project implemented in the fall of 2005 was successful.  It has now become standard procedure for the AHC and they are now looking at expanding the project.  Originally business processing rules would not allow students to be active in more than one degree program at a time. Under the pilot, students were allowed to have more than one program active at the same time and register in one or both depending on the classes they were taking.  There is overwhelming consensus that the program is working well and Sue asked the deans to have pilot removed from the project.  The deans agreed to remove the “pilot” status from the project. 

Informatics
Mark Paller presented a conceptual overview for a University of Minnesota-wide Informatics Program.  He discussed the organizational chart which is an attempt to bring together two activities under a graduate degree program in bioinformatics. One area would be health informatics, the other area would be computational biology. Mark stated there is an opportunity to pull together all the programs to support an overall informatics program.  After some discussion, the deans gave Mark suggestions and changes for the organization of the program.

CTSA
Jas Ahluwalia gave an update on the CTSA grant.  The next submission date for the CTSA is October 27, 2007.  The team consists of an executive committee, steering committee, and three groups for function, oversight, and operations. He plans to have a final draft completed by June 15 and sent to external reviewers by July 1.  Four external reviewers will be on-site August 15, 2007.  Jas is to send the governance and operations structure with descriptions to the deans.

The meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Anderson
Staff to the Academic Health Center Deans Council