SDSU Partners with Sharp Healthcare to Improve Health Communication
A new certificate program is geared toward care providers and health promotion professionals.
The certificate program will focus on improving health communication and help professionals maintain their health education credits, which allow them to continue their practices.
“This program is going to be very hands-on, it’s going to be very applied, every class is going to have something that the students are going to be able to take away from as a deliverable outcome and can take it back to their organization,” said Perry Pauley, director of the health education continuing medical education program at SDSU.
The certificate program is offered with two different tracks, one for health care providers and one for health promotion professionals. There is a different set of classes for each track and all classes are six weeks with a two-hour module each week.
Pauley said the program is designed to meet the needs of working health care professionals, helping them manage their career and classes at the same time. Incorporated in the curriculum is health communication research that has been done at SDSU, he added.
“These are foundational skills that can help you in any field, so this is a chance to take this communication knowledge and research and translate it into a medical context,” said Pauley. “I think there’s a lot of value in that.”
The certificate program in health communication, first developed several years ago, was revived with the creation last year of SDSU’s Center for Communication, Health & the Public Good. The link to the continuing medical education program at Sharp was explored by Heather Canary, director of the School of Communication, and a Sharp HealthCare executive.
“Sharp HealthCare is a very large player in health care delivery across San Diego County, but they are also one of the leading providers in all of Southern California in continuing medical education. The fact that we get to partner with them on this and expand our reach while building a strong community partnership is very exciting,” said Pauley.
“There is something valuable in health communication: We know from a lot of research, including research that has been done at SDSU, that communication really does make a big difference when it comes to health care and health promotion,” said Pauley. Additional information on the certicate program can be found here.
