Dr. Anthony Blash, medication management clinical informaticist at Healthcare Corporation of America’s (HCA) corporate headquarters and assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice presented at the Health Information Management Systems Society’s (HIMSS) 2013 Summit of the Southeast, which includes HIMSS chapters from Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.

This annual two-day conference draws more than 900 healthcare information technology professionals from across the Southeast to discuss top issues surrounding the evolution of care delivery, gain greater insight into the ever-evolving field of healthcare and learn from leading experts in healthcare IT. This year’s theme was “Driving Patient outcomes through Care Collaboration.”

Blash’s session explained the Meaningful Use components of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and how Pharmacist Informaticists are able to play a role in promoting and expanding the adoption of health information technology.

In addition, Blash was selected to be an Educational Steering Committee member for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ (ASHP) Section of Pharmacy Informatics & Technology. The main tasks for this committee are the following:

• Developing “hot topics” for ASHP’s Midyear Clinical Meeting (MCM), which is attended by more than 20,000 pharmacists, other health professionals and pharmaceutical industry exhibitors. The MCM is the largest annual international gathering of pharmacists.
• Reviewing requests for proposals for MCM from Section Advisory Groups
• Coordinating the Informatics Bytes: Pearls of Informatics for the MCM
• Assisting Member Section Program Chairs to share topics for session content
• Providing suggestions to Section Advisory Groups on topics for Networking Webinars

ASHP is the national professional organization whose nearly 40,000 members include pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy students who provide patient care services in hospitals, health systems and ambulatory clinics. For 70 years, the society has been on the forefront of efforts to improve medication use and enhance patient safety.

Dr. Edgar Diaz-Cruz, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical, Social & Administrative Sciences, presented at the Preventive and Occupational Medicine Grand Rounds at the Meharry Medical College on Sept. 18. The audience composed primarily of physicians and medical researchers attended the presentation titled “The Role of the Health Care Provider in the Management of Dietary Supplement Use.” As part of his appointment in the department, Diaz-Cruz has responsibility of providing coursework in natural products and assists in the development and maintenance of the Belmont University medicinal garden.

Belmont student John Thomas Faircloth published an article, “The ‘Climate’ is Changing in Washington,” in the September 2013 issue of Financial Executive. The piece explores the potential short and long-term impacts of President Barack Obama’s climate change initiative released in June. Writing the article was part of his summer internship for the Government Affairs Office at Financial Executive International, a membership organization for senior-level financial executives in Washington D.C.  Faircloth is a junior Honors student majoring in corporate communications and minoring in political science

In a workshop for the Tennessee Communication Association (TCA), Dr. Kevin S. Trowbridge, assistant professor of public relations, challenged attendees to use social media as a tool to engage students in the classroom and beyond.

The presentation was part of a two-day event held Sept. 13-14, at the Embassy Suites in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Students and faculty from 16 colleges and universities across the state participated in the annual conference. This year’s conference theme was “Student Centered Ideas.”

“With increasing demands for post-secondary institutions to deliver the highest quality educational experience in the most efficient and least expensive way, the concept of ‘student-centeredness’ can be misconstrued as a trend that perpetuates a simple consumer mentality toward higher education,” Trowbridge said. “However, as faculty, we must break this misconception and remember that being student-centered is central to our calling as educators.”

The presentation suggested how new technologies have promoted a shift of expectations for engagement for individuals and organizations, including colleges and universities. With an increasing array of social media tools, educators can engage their students in learning through platforms with which digital natives are most regularly engaged, Trowbridge explained.

For nearly 10 years Trowbridge has been studying the effects of social media on the ways individuals communicate with one another as well as with organizations.

In another session at the conference, Trowbridge and Dr. Christie Kleinmann, associate professor of communication arts at Lee University, offered best practices for using client-based. The title of their presentation was “Designing the Best for Both Worlds: Student-Centered Learning through Client-Based Service.”

The Tennessee Communication Association is a professional organization for communication scholars, faculty and students who seek to improve communication education and encourage communication research.