Main Menu | Introduction | Goals and Objectives | 28 Initiatives | Monitoring and Evaluation
| The above figure outlines the scope of the Healthy South Carolina Initiative (HSCI). The goal of the Initiative is to advance the mission of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), "to preserve and optimize human life." In order to meet this goal, the university encourages partnerships among faculty and with the community. These partnerships are vital to addressing complex social problems and, from the university's perspective, they promote excellence in education, clinical service, and research. Twelve examples of outcomes of excellence are identified from the university's strategic plan and are tied to activities of the Initiatives. |
| The 28 projects focus on serious health problems of vulnerable populations. Activities undertaken to attain healthy outcomes are evaluated within individual projects. This enables us to identify approaches that work and that may be sustained in their present location and adopted in other settings. Not only do we look for ways to sustain approaches that work, but also we identify the nature of the partnerships that help them succeed. In this respect, faculty, students, and community partners are viewed as culture-change agents. The cultural changes that we wish to implement relate to this institutional value of community partnerships, interdisciplinary collaborations, service learning, health services research, and development of sustainable community-derived initiatives based on objective assessments of community need. |
| In order to support this degree of institutional change, we have established an advisory board, implemented ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the entire Initiative, and provided for faculty development, marketing and publicity. The evaluation and monitoring functions are designed to foster culture change. These include annual reports of activities and outcomes, interviews with project directors and partners, and educational meetings during which projects share their success and learn from national experts about community partnerships, and evaluation/sustainability of community programs. Members of the Advisory Board review and comment on the annual reports, offering suggestions to projects on how they may further attain their goals. Marketing and publicity further promote the efforts of individual projects and their interdisciplinary and community partnerships in the university and the community. As a result, some projects have received additional funding from local organizations to expand their projects, and others are coordinating efforts with existing agencies. Some partnerships are already producing new initiatives and reaching out to new collaborators. |
| Sustaining the Initiative includes three elements: (a) continuing /expanding the activities of individual projects, (b) changing local and state policies to reflect documented needs identified by the projects, and (c) integrating the ongoing intent of the Initiative into the structure of the university. To this end, a logic model had been developed that identifies units within the university with ongoing responsibility for institutionalizing the culture change resulting from the Initiative. Our goal is to use the Initiative to sustain a lasting change within MUSC in concert with our strategic plan. |