UNMC is set to co-sponsor and host its second national conference on improving rural health care through the use of physician assistants: “Advancing Rural Primary Care II: A National Conference on the Effective Utilization of Physician Assistants,” will take place March 23-24 at Embassy Suites Downtown/Old Market.
The conference will bring together clinicians, administrators, policy makers, researchers, educators, and students to exchange strategies to promote and sustain primary care in rural and underserved communities with the effective utilization of physician assistants. Emphasis is on focusing on best practice models of health care teams, health care delivery, use of technology, education, recruitment, and retention.
March 16 is the final registration deadline.
Michael Huckabee, Ph.D., professor and director of PA education, and assistant dean of clinical affairs, at UNMC’s College of Allied Health Professions, serves as conference director.
“This event promises to bring together the health care team to explore policies and practices that bring the most effective health care to patients in our rural communities,” Dr. Huckabee said. “The caliber of speakers and highly relevant topics make this a one-of-a-kind conference on advancing rural primary care.”
The impressive lineup of speakers and presenters includes Jasmine Sulaiman, M.D., 2016 “Country Doctor of the Year,” Robert Freelove, M.D., C.E.O. of Salina Family Healthcare Center, and Mary Moore, a physician assistant who is mayor of Pearsall, Texas.
UNMC is co-sponsoring the conference along with Des Moines University, Duke University, Lincoln Memorial University, Union College, University of Iowa, University of South Dakota and Wichita State University.
The conference has adopted the tagline, “Come Home to Primary Care,” in order to encourage the effective utilization of physician assistants to address health care disparities in rural and underserved areas.
The conference is part of an ongoing series — UNMC co-sponsored and hosted a previous national conference in 2014.
UNMC has become a national leader in this area thanks in part to a Physician Assistant Training in Primary Care Grant from the Bureau of Health Professions. Dr. Huckabee and Kyle Meyer, Ph.D., dean of the CAHP, are co-primary investigators of the grant.