UNMC employees who work with the RHEN Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program are invited to attend the presentation of a $1.13 million check to UNMC from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The grant, which will create the Panhandle Area Health Education Center, also will provide continued support for the two Nebraska AHECs formed in 2001 in Grand Island and in 2002 in Norfolk. The new AHEC will be at the Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff.
“So many people on campus have contributed to the AHEC and RHEN programs, we would love for these people to join us for this special ceremony celebrating the renewal of our AHEC grant and the creation of a new AHEC in Scottsbluff,” said Roxanna Jokela, director of RHEN and deputy director of the Nebraska AHEC Program Office.
The presentation will be Thursday, Aug. 5, at 11 a.m. in the Durham Research Center atrium. UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., will preside over the presentation.
Guests will include Fred Schuster, director of Region VII, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who will present the check. Randy Ferlic, M.D., a member of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, and Mike Sitorius, M.D., chairman of the UNMC Department of Family Medicine and director of the AHEC program in Nebraska.
A live satellite broadcast from Omaha will be downlinked to the UNMC College of Nursing West Nebraska Division University Complex Panhandle Station, Room 201. Scottsbluff media are scheduled to “attend” in Scottsbluff.
AHECs are multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary, community-based programs that work with community and academic partners to address the primary health care workforce needs and health promotion and disease prevention information needs of medically underserved communities.