West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships
West Virginia Area Health Education Centers Program
Rural Health Advisory Panel
Meeting Minutes
Monday, March 12, 2007
Voting Members In Attendance: Shirley C. Neel, Stephanie Schuler, JoAnn Raines, Dave Brown, Tom Hefner, Patti Crawford, Grace Mitchell, Sharon Hanna, Ralph Utzman, Chris Dodge, Nannette VanDyke-McDonald, Jill Cochran, Imogene Foster, Bill O’Dell, Mike Callaway, Dennis McCutcheon, Hilda R. Heady
Others in Attendance: Margaret Novacich, April Vestal, Sandra Pope, Kimberly Robinson, Derrick Day, Jodie Jackson, Alicia Tyler, Haylee B. Heinsberg, Joyce Martin, Rose Albert, Amy Holbrook, Lew Holloway, Sharon Giles, Debbie Curry, Vanessa Linger, Malinda Turner, Anna Reno, Lora Adkins, Elizabeth Richmond, Amber Crist, Dalena Riggs, Sonnie Strader, Parr Thacker, Crystal Welch, Penny Asbury, Kristi Pritt
Introduction of Kristi Pritt, financial analyst with the Higher Education Policy Commission was made.
Consent Agenda
Call to move consent agenda – The consent agenda with minutes from the November 2006 advisory panel and committee meetings was approved (Foster/Mitchell).
Rural Health Advisory Panel Policy Review & Approval
Discussion and approval of Rural Health Advisory Panel Policy 2004-02 “Policy Statement to Encourage a More Even Distribution of Medical Students” – The Schools committee discussed and approved amending this policy. The revisions involve the timeline in which revisions and implementation of site levels are made. Beginning in July 2008, level designations will be reviewed every two years with the implementation of the new designations occurring the next year. Jodie Jackson explained that the policy may further be revised at a later date to include only 1 level designation rather than the 3 levels of sites which are currently in place. Jodie will be monitoring how this policy will be affecting the AHEC grant in regards to the AHEC policy that states that a minimum of 10% of the clinical time of medical students must take place outside the parent institution. Jodie further explained that this policy was created to increase rotations in areas of the state with low rotation numbers.
The Rural Health Advisory Panel approved the revisions to Policy 2004-02 as presented (Raines/Foster).
A second policy was reviewed and approved in the Finance Committee meeting. Policy 2007-01 “End of the Year Close-Out Procedures” – At the end of the grant period (effective for FY 07), Lead Agencies must return any unspent funds. These funds will then be reallocated based upon the priorities established by the Finance Committee. The Higher Education Policy Commission will then issue a Change Order to the Lead Agency’s current year grant award and increase the grant amount by the amount specified by the Finance Committee.
The Rural Health Advisory Panel approved Policy 2007-01 as presented (Hefner/Mitchell).
Committee Reviews and Group Reports
Recruitment and Retention – Alicia Tyler reported that the committee voted to approve the suggested revisions to Rural Health Advisory Panel Policy 2004-02 at today’s meeting. The committee was briefed on a mental health report which is due in January 2008. Alicia indicated that she is serving on a workforce group that is studying the aspects of mental health provisions in the state.
Health Science Scholarship Program (HSSP) – The HSSP currently receives an annual appropriation of $150,000 and is making more awards due to the revolving fund, which includes paybacks from previous years. Alicia estimates that in 3-4 years, all of these reserve funds will be expended. There is an annual need of an additional $75,000 - $100,000. Kristi will do a trend analysis.
Faculty Development Committee – April reported that the annual field faculty conference was held on March 3, 2007 at the Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown, WV. Attendance was a little lower than our average of 120 with 101 attending the one-day conference. Thirty-two of the participants were dentists and approximately 49 of those in attendance had never attended a conference before which was very good. The committee is exploring holding the conference in the spring rather than fall to see if this will increase attendance.
Southeastern Education Report – Patricia Crawford, AHEC Center Director, Lora Adkins and Elizabeth Richmond, RHEP Coordinators, jointly presented a 20-minute slideshow presentation on the goals and objectives of the Southeastern AHEC/RHEP. Both organizations were commended for their excellent collaborative efforts.
Executive Director/Associate Director Report
Update regarding panel appointments – Hilda Heady reported that we have not received the panel appointments from the Governor’s Office and therefore the planned orientation for new and existing panel members would be moved to the June 2007 meeting. She has been in touch with the Governor’s Office and we are fully expecting appointments will be received by that time. Part of the agenda time during the June meeting will be devoted to the orientation. Office staff are currently working on this project which will be available on CDROM and in manual form if requested. Hard copies will be available and on-line.
Legislative Update – Hilda reported that the NRHA Policy Institute was attended by several partners from West Virginia. Meetings were held with Legislators to discuss national funding issues including many rural health programs. Rural Health programs lost 11 million last year and Geriatric Education Center (GEC) funding was a part of that loss of funding. However, this funding has been reinstated for at least one year. We are moving forward with a grant application for West Virginia as several AHEC/RHEP consortia/regions were involved in this project in the past. Hilda met with Dr. Ham and he agreed that she should be a co-principal investigator on the grant to assure participation of RHEP/AHEC. On the federal level, AHEC has joined forces with NAO and NRHA in asking for funding to be reinstated at last year’s funding for rural health programs under title VII of 31 million.
Legislative Day & Dinner 2008 – Hilda announced that the Legislative Day & Dinner was a great success in 2007 with 225 people in attendance, many of them Legislators. Based on this tremendous success, we are looking at ways to see how we might expand the dinner to increase the focus of the dinner as a tool to further highlight our accomplishments. Hilda asked for some volunteers to work on plans for the 2008 dinner. There would be conference calls to discuss and plan. Volunteers were Grace Mitchell, Lew Holloway, Sharon Hanna, Sharon Giles, Tom Hefner and Dave Brown. Others interested should contact Hilda via email.
Sandra Pope discussed Title VII funding for rural health program. AHEC was funded at the 28.7 million figure, which is the same as 2006. The amount of 31.4 million that NRHA is advocating for includes inflationary costs. The total budget for all Title VII programs is 300 million.
March 26-30, 2007 is National AHEC Week. Several centers will be working on press releases and events during that time to highlight the work they do.
April 24-26, 2007 is the National AHEC Organization (NAO) Leadership Spring Policy Days. Hilda and some other presenters will be doing a session on advocacy for board members, students, residents and AHEC staff. The training session will focus on the 3 point message, role playing and Hill visits. If you have not participated in this type of training, please consider doing so.
Jill Cochran stated the advocacy training the West Virginia Rural Health Association (WVRHA) sponsored in February was wonderful. She suggested we have this training again right before we do our Legislative Day. Patricia Crawford mentioned the WVRHA will be putting the slideshow presentation Alan Morgan gave at that training up on their website for everyone to access. The web address is www.wvrha.org
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned (Hanna/Mitchell).