Center-coordinated Quality Enhancement Plan featured in UTHealth News

Quality Enhancement Plan to promote student engagement, critical thinking, career preparedness

As part of our efforts to continuously enhance the academic programs and student learning environment at UTHealth, we are pleased to announce the launch of a new Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) focused on Health Care Policy for Health Professionals. Known as HP², this QEP will promote student engagement, critical thinking, and career preparedness, and reflects UTHealth’s commitment to institutional quality and effectiveness.

The three pillars of HP2 are aimed at specific educational outcomes:

• Evaluating key factors in how policy is made and changed in the U.S. health care system
• Explaining the role that government and nongovernment agencies play in science and scientific innovation
• Analyzing the influence of public policy on health care access, delivery, and funding in the U.S.

Over the next five years, we will study and assess HP2 to measure the program’s impact in these three areas, and to make any adjustments needed.

Our QEP Leadership Team has engaged each of our schools in the development of HP², and designed specific initiatives to ensure its successful implementation. These include:

• Faculty development to ensure educators have the necessary skills and tools
• A Civics 101 module that provides learners with basic instruction on how laws and regulations are crafted at the state and national level
• A virtual health policy pandemic simulation where students will be afforded the opportunity to construct and analyze policies
• Enhancement of each school’s current curricula, as appropriate
• Health policy forums that meet school-specific needs
• Advocacy modules that provide students with tools for engaging in the legislative process

With input from student, faculty, and staff councils at UTHealth, the topic of health care policy was selected through a process involving more than 20 proposed topics for our QEP. HP2 is now being coordinated by the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics and a QEP Leadership Team with faculty representation from all six of our schools. We are grateful to all of the faculty members who participated in the QEP process, and to the QEP Leadership Team for your tremendous service and efforts in the development and implementation of HP2.

Quality enhancement in student learning at UTHealth is more than just part of our culture of continuous improvement, but is also a part of our institution’s ongoing accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). For more information about UTHealth’s QEP, including opportunities for student involvement, please contact Rebecca Lunstroth, JD, associate director, McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, and director of UTHealth’s QEP.

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