Professional Association Collaborations Underwrite Education
For nearly 20 years, Toshiba America Medical Systems has been a vanguard-level sponsor of the RSNA’s Research and Education Foundation, which funds grants for young researchers in the imaging field. Since its inception 26 years ago, the foundation has provided more than $25 million in grants to 630 radiology investigators and educators. “These grants align with Toshiba’s focus on education and research,” Cathy Wolfe, director of marketing services for Toshiba, explains.
Toshiba’s education-focused collaboration with professional associations has expanded in the past few years to include the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and AHRA: The Association for Medical Imaging Management. The company sponsors the AHRA’s Putting Patients First Program, and has completed its second round of grant giving. The program seeks to improve the safety and quality of care in imaging both pediatric and adult patients. Putting Patients First provides six grants of up to $7,500 per year to hospitals and imaging centers to help fund programs, training, or seminars focused in this area.
In 2008, one such project involved developing a patient-handoff system to facilitate transferring patients from the hospital to the imaging department. Another looked at creating a bar-code system for identifying patients with allergies to contrast media. All grant recipients agree to share their results with others so that facilities around the country have the ability to implement similar systems, according to Ed Cronin, executive director of AHRA. Cronin notes that one of the 2008 recipients developed a seminar to present to other hospitals in the region; others wrote articles on their results for the AHRA’s journal, Radiology Management.
A similar partnership with ACHE gives a boost to midlevel managers who aspire to be leaders in the radiology field. Beginning this year, Toshiba will sponsor scholarships for 60 executives to attend a series of three leadership seminars throughout 2010, 2011 and 2012. “This is a program we developed several years ago to help middle managers move into roles in the C-suite,” Peggy Gordon, vice president of development at ACHE, explains. “It’s very intensive. The seminars happen three times a year, for three days at a time and are given by a very distinguished roster of faculty teaching management and leadership.”
The first 2010 seminar occurs in June and focuses on establishing leadership; the second takes place in August and looks at innovation and overcoming the financial challenges facing the health care industry; and the third, themed Manage for the Future, is slated for October. “Part of the reason for participating in the ACHE program is helping to strengthen health care leadership through quality education,” Wolfe says. “ACHE is an impressive organization in terms of its mission and vision, and of its focus on integrity, which we thought was a good fit with Toshiba.”
Through a fourth, emerging partnership with the Society for Pediatric Radiology, Toshiba has helped the organization develop a survey to address the concerns of pediatric radiologists. “We try to look at ways to collaborate that are more unique, that provide new benefits to the organization and an opportunity for differentiation,” Wolfe says. “We believe in investing in the industry in which we work, and one of the best ways to do that is to help ensure ongoing education of the membership.”
Finally, Toshiba is continuing its support of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography’s (SCCT) Young Investigator Awards. The SCCT is the leading international professional society dedicated to research, education and clinical excellence in cardiovascular computed tomography (CT), and is now accepting submissions for the fourth annual awards program. Sponsored by Toshiba, the unrestricted educational grants will be awarded to two residents or fellows in either radiology or cardiology for their patient care research in the categories of technical and clinical advancement of cardiovascular CT. The deadline for submissions is April 2, 2010. Abstracts are being accepted in two categories – Technology of Cardiovascular CT, or Clinical Applications of Cardiovascular CT. Applicants may enter by submitting an abstract through the SCCT Web site.
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Tags: education, funding, grants, Patients First, research, RSNA
Category: Community,Education & Training —