Are you concerned about the state of the U.S. public health system? Do you want to work with others to figure out a new way forward?

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the world, it has demonstrated the importance of a robust public health system, one that is ready to respond in times of crisis as well as supporting the foundations of a healthy society. The 2021 Salk Health Activist Fellowship will focus emerging activists on re-envisioning public health in America to address our current dismal state of health. While COVID-19 has exposed problems in our healthcare infrastructure, it is only one of a multitude of problems that need to be addressed. Now is the opportunity to look across disciplines to create a renewed vision of public health and create lasting change.

During the 9-week program, Fellows will learn from regional and national experts, past public health initiatives, and work in multidisciplinary teams to bring fresh solutions to the challenges facing public health in the U.S. Fellows will gain insights into the existing U.S. public health system, behavioral science principles, and how technology can be incorporated to foment change. Fellows will expand their ideas on health, exploring what health means to U.S. communities, as they work toward outside-the-box solutions that re-envision a new approach to public health. Utilizing the framework of design-thinking, they will synthesize their experiences to propose an innovative idea to a current public health challenge within either a local, statewide, or national context.

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation’s Patient Safety Fellowship will offer a unique curriculum this summer to explore the challenges and opportunities facing senior residential living and senior care. After the disruption of COVID-19, options for elders must embrace creative solutions that help older adults age well and safely in a range of settings. Fellows, working across disciplines, will explore existing and conceptual models for transforming our community and healthcare systems that maximize quality of life for elders and families.

Within teams, fellows will identify core elements to design a new model that enhances current systems to maximize safety and quality, and then they will pitch how the adoption and implementation of their model would address challenges of our current systems.

This Fellowship takes on a key challenge: the reality that professionals are not well prepared to deal with or talk about death, dying, and grieving families, especially during an era of COVID-19. The Fellowship allows participants to learn, confront, and discuss the legal, medical, social, cultural, familial, and spiritual aspects of death and dying within a multi-disciplinary group in a low-pressure environment. The sessions include opportunities to practice conversation skills, facilitated conversations, and virtual site visits.

Ever wonder why the issue that you are passionate about hasn’t grabbed the public’s attention or transformed health care? Do you want to learn how to construct a winning strategy to mobilize action and influence policy?

During the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, and as our nation heads toward a critical election, the 2020 Jonas Salk Health Activist Fellowship will focus emerging health activists on critical reproductive health issues that impact the work of nurses and midwives. COVID-19 has disrupted essential women’s health services with changing policies and practices across the nation. Now is the opportunity to advocate for a renewed platform for women’s health and create lasting change.

During the 9-week program (10 sessions), Fellows will interact with some of the region’s foremost leaders in policy, advocacy, and women’s health to learn how to develop compelling platforms, build coalitions, and advocate with elected officials. Fellows will develop new skills around public policy and storytelling in order to develop appealing and effective reform and build public will. During the finale of the Fellowship, Fellows will get the chance to engage with legislators and advocate for a strategy for bills impacting nursing, midwifery, and women's reproductive issues.

The Patient Safety Fellowship is a dynamic educational program of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, and Health Careers Futures.

The Fellowship aims to foster the healthcare leaders of tomorrow—leaders who respond to rapid change and discovery, apply an interdisciplinary approach, and strive to continually improve health care and patient safety.

This summer, the Fellowship is focusing on the overall response to COVID-19 in the U.S.. Over the course of the 9-week program, fellows will engage with a variety of expert speakers in the fields of public health, infectious disease, safety science, and emergency preparedness, as well as leaders of healthcare systems and local innovators adapting to the crisis. As the fellows engage with one another and gain insight from the different lens of the pandemic, they will synthesize their lessons and apply them in designing a response to a case study/scenario of a healthcare outbreak or disaster.

The home for the 2019 Salk Health Activist Fellowship.

We are going to use this platform to be able to communicate effectively, collaborate, and build each other up for this fellowship. Activism starts here. Let us learn and use each other's strengths to the best of our ability. 

Together, we can change the world. 

Achieve the Triple Aim of healthcare quality improvement by providing patients with the information  on their care plans but encouraging them to ask “why?” In regards to physician orders. Additionally, encourage providers to be smarter with the care plans created for their patients by thinking more critically about what they are ordering.  

Many uninsured or low-income individuals face complex life situations that make establishing routine care and addressing their social needs extremely difficult. Setting these individuals up with experienced case managers or social workers often helps, but there are many instances when the healthcare team loses total contact with a patient and their family. Whether their phone got disconnected, their housing arrangments changed, or they had to follow a job or work, all of these barriers prevent individuals from receiving the health care and community resources that many of us take for granted. 

Many new and existing IT companies are working on developing platforms that integrate care among a multidisciplinary team of providers. These apps and websites bridge the communication barrier between healthcare professionals and social workers to manage a patient's social needs as well as their healthcare. But many of these apps, platforms, and websites are either a) inaccessible to underserved/low-income populations, b) not mindful of health literacy, c) not available in multiple languages or d) do not have a channel for individuals to be involved in their care management.

I dream of a world where assault by providers in birth doesn't occur, and every procedure is done with genuinely informed consent. Until that time people are suffering at the hands of providers who are physically assaulting them, not asking for consent, mocking, and terrorizing laboring people. When people find the courage to speak out, they are silenced and told to be grateful for having birthed a child. The trauma and PTSD they suffer carries into their lives long past that one day. We must acknowledge that assault during birth is sexual assault and that no means no when it is said to anyone anywhere even in a hospital, even if you are in labor. Providers must be held accountable, but they won't be until as a country we can say medical sexual assault and be taken seriously

In an attempt to de-stigmatize drug use and promote access to care, an intiative to educate on the benefits of harm reduction methods, with an emphasis on access to syringe exchange programs, will be implemented. Using testimonials, infographics, and other promotional materials, myths and misconceptions of needle exchanges will be debunked. In addition, participants will be encourage to write their representatives to 1. decriminalize syringes, and 2. promote the legalization of needle exchanges statewide for Pennsylvania.

Pittsbrugh Air Quality is continually ranked one of the worst in the nation. Allegheny County ranks in the top 2 percent in cancer risks from air pollution and Pittsburgh's childhood asthma rates are higher than the national average (22% compared to 8%). High asthma rates keep kids out of school, impacts learning and overall wellbeing. 

The goal of this group is two-fold;

1. To implement the Air Quality Flag Program into Pittsburgh-area schools. This program utilizes the EPA's Air Quality Index to report on air quality conditions using a flag color system. When air quality is unhealthy, people can take actions to reduce exposure to air pollution. 

2. School-wide health surverys to monitor asthma symptoms on bad or unhealthy air quality days compared to good air days. This will allow collection of data from many children to correllate air quality to asthma prevlance. 

Pregnant women, no matter their socioeconomic status, should have equal rights and access to the best care. We hope to narrow down the potential causes of increased mortality rates and design unique solutions to address gaps in quality and access to care. 

The aim of this project is to establish a maternal care collaborative similar to and modeled after the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC). This collaborative will differ in that it will be run for and by hospitals that primarily service neighborhoods with a large black population (there is evidence that points to the quality of care at hospitals where a disproportionate number of black women deliver as a contributing factor as to why black mothers are dying at a rate that is higher than white moms). 

Key elements of the collaborative:

- All hospitals in the collaborative will work to submit data to the MMRIA (Maternal Mortality Review Information Application) a free data system that allows users to develop quality improvement plans based on the reports generated by MMRIA (CMQCC has their maternal data center. This collaborative will utilize an existing free one to cut costs at least in the beginning). 

- Create and share development of evidence-based quality improvement toolkits that address the leading causes of preventable complications and deaths 

- Physician education: provide patient first continuing medical education for providers that address the common issues black women face in their pregnancies; physician and hospital administration education on new protocols for rare situations

- Use of predictive analytics to develop a risk score for pregnancy related complications and maternal mortality that will be available for all providers to see in the patient's EHR. (Major difference between this collaborative and CMQCC). 

- Development or outsourcing of a doula program similar to the use of case/disease managers for women who were identified as high risk through the risk score analysis mentioned above 

- Development and distribution of a patient satisfaction survey. Dedicated Committee to review all surveys and address issues 

Stigma related to substance use  is considered a main barrier to the early identification, diagnosis and access to treatment. Decreasing stigma related to substance use among healthcare providers can help enhance early access to treatment and improve patients' health outcomes. 

Patients who lack the basic access to Food Transportation and Housing are at greatest risk for being isolated from the healthcare system. Efforts underway to improve and remove that barrier are needed to ensure long term patient improvement.

Connect 4 Care calls on heathcare leaders to adopt one system-wide electronic health record (EHR) platform within thier healthcare system in order to alleviate burnout among healthcare professionals and improve patient outcomes.