PA Foundation Announces Its Eleventh Annual
Innovations in Health Care Recognition Program

The Physician Assistant (PA) Foundation, the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), and Pfizer Inc are pleased to announce the Eleventh Annual Innovations in Health Care Recognition Program. Through this initiative, the PA Foundation, AAPA, and Pfizer continue their commitment to supporting physician assistants in developing innovations in clinical practice and in PA educational programs.

Awardees will be recognized and will receive cash awards to support further development or implementation of their practice or program enhancements. Two awards of $5,000 each will be made for projects that have been in existence for two years or more. One award of $3,500 will be made for a project in existence for less than two years. Both PA programs and clinical practices are eligible to apply for these awards.

A special focus area this year will be health disparities, including projects that focus on multicultural, socioeconomic, insurance coverage, and technological issues as they relate to health disparities. Two awards of $3,500 each will be presented in this category.

Winners must demonstrate the use of an innovative approach in clinical practice or in a PA educational program and show how the solutions have been successfully implemented. In other words, your group should have recognized a need, established goals to meet that need, and successfully implemented a program to attain those goals. The applicant must be a PA, a member of AAPA, or integrally involved in a PA program.

Last year’s recipients were either practicing PAs, students, and/or PAs involved in PA programs. The winners included

• Community Health Clinic of Hardin & LaRue Counties, Elizabethtown, Kentucky
• Positive Attitude Towards Changing Habits (PATCH), Fort Worth, Texas, University of Texas Health Science Center
• Healthcare Binder, Detroit, Michigan, Downriver Cardiology Consultants
• Healthy Families Program, Chicago, Illinois, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science PA Program
• Multidisciplinary Education Program, Chicago, Illinois, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science PA Program
• Reclaim Your Name Identity Restoration Project, San Antonio, Texas, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

The application is available online at http://www.aapa.org/paf/innovations-form.pdf, and the deadline is November 1, 2005. Winners will be notified in late December and will be acknowledged throughout the year by both the PA Foundation and AAPA. If you have questions, contact Francesca Rusk at frusk@aapa.org or 703/836-2272, ext. 3114.