A New Year at PennMSHP
Happy belated New Year!
 
2018 was a productive and transformative year for the PennMSHP program. We launched our new website featuring a video with alumni, current students, faculty, and directors. We welcomed a number of exciting speakers to meet PennMSHP students, including former Governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear (pictured above), Secretary Kara Odom Walker of Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, and Dan Gorenstein, a former Senior Health Care reporter for Marketplace currently in residency at Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. We expanded our Twitter and Instagram presence and celebrated our 10 th Anniversary with alumni from all over the country.
2019 is off to an equally fantastic start. We are currently interviewing for the 2019-2021 PennMSHP cohort and are thrilled to report that our applicant pool has grown this year. We truly appreciate your efforts and help with getting the word out about our program and we thank you for referring your mentees, colleagues, and fellows to us.
 
There is a lot to look forward to this semester, from our third annual Implementation Science Institute to the graduation of our first cohort from the Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Safety's (CHIPS) new Certificate in Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety program.

Implementation Science Institute 2019
Implementation science has emerged as a discipline to bridge the research-to-practice gap, and Penn is pleased to offer a unique and invigorating three-day institute that introduces participants to the foundations of implementation science. In the MSHP Implementation Science Institute, students receive an overview of terminology, conceptual models, frameworks and study designs and begin to think about implementation strategies and sustainability. The Institute is co-led by Rinad Beidas, PhD, Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP and Judy Shea, PhD . Registration is now open for the May 29-May 31 Institute and further details can be found on our website .
Certificate in Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety
The CHIPS certificate program, the first certificate program offered by the MSHP, is an outgrowth of courses developed in a collaboration between CHIPS and MSHP focused on patient safety and healthcare quality. The certificate program is designed to provide faculty, fellows, and other healthcare professionals with a broad introduction and practical skills related to health care quality and patient safety over the course of one, two, or three years. Over the course of the program, all participants complete three masters-level courses in this field taught by faculty from the University of Pennsylvania and complete a capstone quality improvement project with guidance from a QI advisor. Participants will graduate from the program with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be effective leaders of inter-professional health care improvement teams in their local environment.
 
Applications for the 2019 CHIPS Certificate Cohort are now open until May 1, 2019. Learn more and apply here .
Student Feature: Sam Takvorian, MD
In a recent NEJM perspective piece, current MSHP student, Sam Takvorian, writes with coauthors about MACRA's patient relationship codes. These billing code modifiers allow clinicians to report their relationship to a patient at a given point in time with the goal of attributing responsibility for the care provided. While such measurement and attribution of responsibility is critical when assessing performance under any new value-based payment program, the authors warn of several unintended consequences . Read more .
Alumni Feature: Gita Suneja, MD
PennMSHP alumna, Gita Suneja, MD, received a five-year National Cancer Institute Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (K08) for her project titled, “Cancer Treatment Disparities in the HIV Population: Exploring the Impact of HIV on Physician and Patient Decision-Making.” You can read more about Gita and her current work here .
Breaking News: Three PennMSHP Students Receive 2019 Penn LDI Pilot Awards
Current students, Austin Kilaru, Kirstin Manges and Joseph Nwadiuko receive Penn LDI pilot grants for preliminary research, respectively, on access to opioid treatment following a non-fatal overdose, skilled nursing facilities for veterans and health care utilization among undocumented immigrants. More information about these projects, as well as the other pilot fund awardees, can be found here .