Summer 2017

UNC Gillings MPH Students

Western NC Internship Opportunities
Coordinated by Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC)

As part of a growing partnership between MAHEC, UNC Asheville, and UNC Gillings
School of Global Public Health, MAHEC is coordinating summer
internship/practicum experiences with regional healthcare, public health, and
community partners in western NC.

These exciting opportunities are offered in forward-thinking and innovative

organizations which are truly improving the health of our communities.

Included with the internships is a weekly didactics session on the MAHEC campus
in Asheville, where all MPH students convene to: share what they are learning
with their peers, seek feedback or problem-solving for any challenges, hear from
local guest speakers about creative and collaborative population health efforts,
and get support from MAHEC staff (Travis Johns, MD, & Melissa Baker, MPH) and
UNCA faculty (Ameena Batada, MPH, DrPH, & Amy Lanou, PhD).

MAHEC staff is available to assist with finding housing. MPH students may choose to share
housing together.

Mission Health Partners
Accountable Care
Organization
www.MissionHealthPart
ners.org
Mission Health Partners is the largest Medicare Shared
Savings Program ACO in the state of North Carolina with 50,
000 Medicare beneficiaries and almost 80,000 total
attributed lives across all payer contracts. Mission Health
Partners population health strategy is centered around
social determinants of health, and its IT platform heavily
influenced by the Pathways Hub model. This model of care
coordination provides a framework to partner with
community agencies that work on specific social
determinants pathways. As the community organizations
attempt to close these social determinants gaps for an
individual patient, Mission Health Partners is able to track
success at the patient and population level. Each
community agency then contributes to the overall care plan
for our most complex patients with the goal of improving
outcomes and reducing costs by building the appropriate
social infrastructure for our highest risk patients.

Practicum Description:
MPH candidates from UNC Gillings School of Global Public
Health working at the ACO would not only see the impacts
of policy and regulation on physician networks and
healthcare delivery in our region, but be able to assess
 outcomes related to those policies. Given our model, MPH
students can participate within several domains of our
organization:
Project management and evaluation,
Data analysis,
Field work with our lay community health workers or
community paramedics,
Health plan design to drive improved outcomes
And a whole host of other initiatives.

Historically Mission Health Partners has developed projects

around: resiliency and trauma among high-risk Medicare
beneficiaries, developing and measuring impactability
scores for our population to optimize resources, evaluating
the effectiveness of community paramedic programs,
development of transportation initiatives for high-risk
groups and many other projects. Given our focus and
structure, we feel confident we can provide an educational
as well as a creative environment for MPH students in our
western NC region.

WNC Health Network & WNC Health Network is an alliance of 17 hospitals in

WNC Healthy Impact western North Carolina, exists to convene and connect
stakeholders and provide support for our members and
www.WNCHealthyImpac partners to improve health and healthcare across its
sixteen-county region. WNC Health Network aims to:
t.com
Support a patient and community-centered
culture of improvement, collaboration, and
health
Improve hospital and partner knowledge and
skills
Provide opportunities for networking and
relationship building
Collect, report, and monitor data that helps our
customers improve population-level results and
performance
Support hospital and partner agencies in being
results-focused and aligned
Create tools and templates to promote efficiency
and common agenda
Leverage hospital investments to secure
resources for addressing regional needs
One of our primary programs is WNC Healthy Impact.
This partnership and coordinated process between
hospitals, public health agencies, and key regional partners
in western North Carolina, is working towards a vision of
improved community health. We are working together
 locally and regionally on a community health improvement
process to assess health needs, develop collaborative
plans, take coordinated action, and evaluate progress and
impact.

Practicum Description:
WNC Health Network is offering an MPH practicum
experience in Results-Based Accountability and data
communication for community health improvement. This
project may evolve over time and grow with the skills and
interests of the student, within the realm of increasing
capacity for professionals in western North Carolina to
effectively collaborate with community members and
stakeholders to use data for community health
improvement. The scope of work may include:
o Data visualization: Creating materials to pilot
infographics and other tools with western North
Carolina local health department and hospital
stakeholders. Depending on the timing and skills
of the student, this could entail designing,
piloting, evaluating, and training regional
professionals on data visualization tools.
o Data communication: Craft talking points for
priority regional and local data. These key
messages would be used in a variety of settings,
including within electronic scorecards used
regionally and locally to share data.
o Telling the stories behind the data: Soliciting and
crafting stories as communication tools to
highlight local successes. This may include
interview local professionals about successes in
measurable performance improvement,
capturing the highlights and talking points, and
gathering powerful images to support the story.

Asheville Buncombe
Institute for Parity ABIPA is a community-based organization that improves
Achievement (ABIPA) health conditions for African Americans by providing
education, health services and advocacy from a unique
understanding of the African American experience and a
www.abipa.org
demonstrated ability to increase collaboration, connection,
awareness and trust across diverse segments of the
community. We serve African Americans and all people of
color in the following ways:

Locate: From the barber shop to the fellowship hall,

we go into communities of color to reach people
 where they are.

Educate: We speak in ways that are culturally

relevant and sensitive. We encourage participants to
ask questions and get information in an environment
of trust.

Navigate: We serve as guides and companions to

individuals navigating a complex health care
system.

Advocate: We empower individuals to take control of

their own health. We strengthen the whole
community by bringing people and resources
together to meet an urgent need.

ABIPA provides the following Education & Health Services

through collaborations with community organizations,
groups and individuals in an effort to address and improve
health conditions for African Americans.

Practicum Description:

The MPH Practicum with ABIPA will focus on community-

driven solutions to increasing health equity in African
American communities. The MPH student will work with
staff of this small organization to:

o Assist with field education on chronic disease prevention

and outreach efforts in local housing communities and
churches;
o Gather, enter, analyze, and report on data on the
impact of education and outreach efforts of ABIPA nurse
and Community Service Navigators/Community Health
workers with our local ACO Mission Health Partners
project; and
o Analyze existing program data and translate findings
into materials for a variety of audiences, including
funders/donors, health professionals, clients, and the
general public.