President Ono Extends Funding For Health Care Workforce Diversity Efforts

CINCINNATI--As the funding period for the University of Cincinnati’s Urban Universities for HEALTH (UU HEALTH) Project comes to a close at the end of June 2016, UC President Santa Ono has announced his commitment to extend the project. 

Through a "Creating Our Third Century” investment of $300,000, Ono will fund a position to continue the work for the next three years under the direction of Greer Glazer, PhD, associate vice president of health affairs and dean of UC College of Nursing. Barbara Tobias, MD, professor of family and community medicine at the UC College of Medicine and medical director of The Health Collaborative will continue her involvement in this work.

"Creating Our Third Century” is the university’s vision aligned to UC’s bicentennial in 2019. It focuses on investing in people and reinvesting in the institution’s core academic mission.

"The significant accomplishments of the UU HEALTH Project have positioned us as a national exemplar in working to diversify the health care workforce and shape institutional response toward diversity and inclusive excellence,” Ono said. "I am confident that this investment will ensure continued progress in this area, and help us as a university meet our Third Century goals.”

UC was named one of five urban universities in 2012 to participate in UU HEALTH, a national academic learning collaborative focused on investigating approaches to health care workforce development to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities in local communities. UU HEALTH awarded UC’s Academic Health Center (AHC) a four-year grant totaling over $400,000 toward the research endeavor. 

UU HEALTH, which stands for Health Equity through Alignment, Leadership and Transformation of the Health Workforce, was a partnership effort of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU)/Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The project aims to address the severe shortage of qualified health professionals in underserved areas by leveraging the power of urban universities to enhance and expand a culturally sensitive, diverse and prepared health workforce. 

As the result of the work during the initial funding period, institution-wide health workforce principles and goals have been embedded into UC’s 2019 strategic plan. Mission-based health care targets have been established to increase enrollment of diverse students in the AHC and each AHC college by the admitting class of 2019.

Through collaboration with the UC Office of Institutional Research and the UC Office of Diversity, the UU HEALTH project enhanced the institutional diversity dashboard to track key outcome measures in student enrollment and retention, diversity and pipeline program efforts, cultural competency opportunities, interest in primary care and graduate workforce outcomes that link into centralized university data resources.  

"I am extremely appreciative of the courageous leadership that President Ono has exhibited in championing our efforts to diversify the health care workforce in order to provide access to quality health care and decrease health disparities, which unfortunately remains a major issue locally, regionally and nationally,” Glazer said. 

The extension of the project will allow for further work with regional employers to work collaboratively in developing a sustainable model for academic service partnership for education and health care workforce development. Continued work is expected to include sharing best practices and developing outreach programs to grow, recruit and retain diverse talent and focus on health disparities among targeted populations. 

"Given the success we’ve accomplished with the initial funding, I am thankful that President Ono has provided a mechanism to sustain and elevate this work and further impact our local and national education and health care system. Our Community Advisory Board will intensify efforts to increase community partnership and unify efforts to address and eliminate local racialized outcomes,” Glazer said. 

"The success that the University of Cincinnati achieved during the initial funding of the UU HEALTH Project far exceeded our expectations. We believe this was due to the outstanding leadership at both a university and project level, as well as, to the significant partnerships established with major community stakeholders,” says Jennifer Danek, MD, senior director, USU Health Initiatives and UU HEALTH. "As the UU HEALTH funding ends, I couldn’t have asked for a better result than to see this work extended.”