Oral

The 2011 student award session recognizes students in public health who have submitted particularly meritorious research which dovetails with the interests and goals of the Medical Care Section of APHA. The intersection of patient safety, quality care and profit will be investigated in several provocative papers. The papers on HIV/AIDS provide insight into the costs of doing business in the resource limited work of serving patients with complex medical and psychosocial-economic issues. The impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on clinical research will broaden the discussion of how to evaluate care from the broad areas of primary care including HIV/AIDS to the more specific issues such as refining surgical options such as colectomy to guarantee best outcomes. Patient safety will also be addressed in the ongoing tracking of use of psychiatric medication in pediatrics with a particular focus on the expansion of antiseizure medication to use in psychiatric disorders. The papers on colectomy and pediatric medication rely on creative use of large data bases to investigate clinical practice. Intertwined in all these papers is the question of how economic forces impact the goals of quality care.

Session Objectives: Analyze barriers and opportunities in delivering high quality care to the general population and specifically to patients with HIV/AIDS Evaluate quality of care over time utilizing large data bases to judge use and overuse of technology and pharmaceuticals Discuss clinical research methods that will be of particular value as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is implements

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)