Contact: Lisa Brown, CJI executive director, at (360) 650-4495 ext. 107 or lisa.brown@wwu.edu.
BELLINGHAM — The Critical Junctures Institute, a Whatcom County-based institute that conducts research promoting community and individual health, plans to hold its coming-out party from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, in the Viking Union Multipurpose Room on the Western Washington University campus.
The institute is a collaboration of WWU and St. Joseph Hospital, and the event will be hosted by WWU President Bruce Shepard and St. Joseph Hospital Chief Executive Officer Nancy Steiger.
"The hospital and the university have come together to form the institute so that faculty and students can be exposed to different aspects of health care, and so that our health care can benefit from the resources of the university," said CJI Executive Director Lisa Brown.
The purpose of this reception, Brown said, is to engage the community with the institute's mission. Community members will be on hand to explain a few of the various research efforts currently under way at the CJI. Among them:
- Lori Nichols from the Whatcom Health Information Network (HInet) will explain the Shared Care Plan, which allows patients to keep track of their personal health information, such as health goals, care team members, medications and advance directives. "Patients told us they wanted their own medical record to update and to share with family caregivers and health professionals," Nichols said.
- QualisHealth representatives will explain the Stepping Stones: Bridging Healthcare Gaps Project to improve transitions of care. "The aim of the project is to measurably improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries who transition from inpatient care through a comprehensive community effort," Brown said.
- Liz Mogford, a Sociology professor at WWU, will discuss the upcoming Global Health and Social Justice Lecture Series. The CJI's goal for the series is to direct attention to global health issues and promote health equity in Bellingham and beyond, Brown said.
- WWU Sociology professor Kristin Anderson and co-project director Richard Scholtz will discuss the health mapping project they're conducting with the help of WWU students. Students in the project survey senior citizens in Whatcom County to get their views of healthy living.
Both Shepard and Steiger plan to speak at the event. Also speaking will be Jay Teachman, a WWU Sociology professor; Marc Pierson, vice president of Clinical Information and Special Projects at St. Joseph Hospital; and Chris Phillips, director for Community Affairs and Mission Integration at St. Joseph Hospital. All are CJI associate directors.
"This community has long cooperated to solve healthcare problems," Pierson said. "We will now become innovators at broader cooperation and learning, through the interplay of existing groups and organizations, using leading-edge information technology and supported by WWU and the local health care community."
The institute's mission is to be a research and learning partner for health promotion and health care advancement within Whatcom County and beyond. The institute's future goals will be shaped by what the community needs, and gatherings such as the one on Jan. 13 should help to shape that vision, Brown said.
"Understanding and measuring the social determinants and physical environments for health is a primary focus of public health," she said. "Our community members who bring projects to us will help define what the institute does in this regard. We're keeping our goals broad for now so that the community defines what the institute will be like in five years."
The CJI is funded by both WWU and the hospital and has its office in the former Port of Bellingham headquarters building on Cornwall Avenue. On the day of the event, shuttle vans will run continuously between 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. from 625 Cornwall Ave. to the Multipurpose Room. WWU Campus Police will direct parking and traffic.
For more information about the Critical Junctures Institute or to RSVP for the party, contact Lisa Brown at (360) 650-4495 ext. 107 or lisa.brown@wwu.edu.
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