Introduction
Academy Health is a non-profit organization and it was founded in the year 2000 A.D. for the purpose of the advancement of the research in the field of health services and predominantly in the field of the health policy. Originally the organization is a merger of two organizations which were previously known for their services in the given area. The name of the organizations which gave birth to this new and more classified organization are the Alpha Centre and the Association for Health Services Research (AHSR). Therefore, it is not the continuation of the same concept but instead it is a more refined form of the base concept.
Membership
Like every global research organization, Academy Health has a membership program which further divides into three different types of memberships., contributing members, supporting members, and affiliate members. There are 7 contributing members in total and these basically contribute in organizing and conducting research. There are a total of 14 supporting members and it includes the top medical institutes in the US. There are more than 100 Affiliate members as of today. All in all, this prestigious institute has a growing number of the members that make this organization worthy and respectable amongst other research bodies.
Programs and Projects
The organization better manages the research programs that contribute in policy communities and the health services. We are discussing some of the top program here:
Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO)
The program is actually funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The purpose of the program is to become a bridge between the health services research and the public and private health policy communities.It further enables the law makers and the decision makers to fetch useful information that can help them in policy making and financing the public health programs as well.
Health Service Research (HSR) Methods:
It is actually a website and acts as the interface that has the information that is meaningful to the researchers. Thus, these methods contribute a lot to help the researchers that are contributing in the health services domain. Actually, the Academy Health has formulated a methods council to facilitate the researcher quite better. The council has 25 members as of today and is chaired by Bryan Dowd. The council members are actually the leaders of different research disciplines. Thus, it is a great service to Mankind and humanity indeed.
Improving Hispanic Elders’ Health: Community Partnerships for Evidence-Based Solutions
It is an initiative that is taken to improve the health and life quality for senior citizens of Hispanic origin. Under this program the hispanic people are actually encouraged to take the full benefit of new medicinal research. It further covers the flu shots, cardiovascular screening, diabetes screening and even cancer screening services. Therefore, this program provides the great opportunity for the hispanic elders to live healthy lives and adopt a lifestyle that has the potential to give them a life full of peace and harmony.
Knowledge Transfer Ability
Academy Health in collaboration with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality provides the best suitable research program. In this program the Academy works with the purchasers, health care providers, state and local government leaders and helps them to better understand the health service research findings and it further helps in making the more calculated decisions.
Conferences:
In addition to the programs and projects, the academy also hosts a good number of seminars and conferences throughout the year. These conferences address some of the critical and important health services issues.
Annual Research Meeting
As the name suggests, it is an annual meeting that holds to discuss the issues and the research materials as well. In real terms it is actually a three day conference where the researchers present their papers. The beauty of the conference is that it successfully attracts both private and public sector researchers. In the early times the organization had some 300 attendees whereas in the last session it had 2200 participants. This suggests that the conference is becoming more credible amongst the researchers and the private sector organizations as well. Every year the conference is hosted by multiple cities. This gives the chance to the local researchers to participate more in such conferences.
The National Health Policy Conference
It is a two days conference that imparts light on the United States upcoming health policy. It provides the chance for the researchers to participate and discuss health policy agenda quite precisely. We can assess the importance of the conference in the US that some of the presidential candidates have been the speakers in this prestigious two day conference.
Bridge Between Institutes of Research and Policy Making
The Academy Health is the bridge between the Public Policy making institutes and the research institutes. Therefore, it enables the governments to make the health policy based on the real facts and figures that actually can benefit the people in general. The beauty of the organization is that it provides multiple platforms for private and public research institutes to share the latest research papers and benefit the human beings.