Education is the overarching driver for achieving health equity.
The i4Health program equips individuals and student teams to effectively solve today’s most pressing health problems with creative solutions. The program provides a fresh approach for preparing health innovators through a series of classes, practicums, and workshops that focus on creating innovative, entrepreneurial leaders and thinkers who can innovate in a range of work environments, from startups to global enterprises.
The i4Health offerings reach students across our campus, bringing together teams with educational, geographic, experiential, and demographic diversity – a critical element for developing dynamic thinking skills that fuel creative solutions to health issues and promote health equity.
The Health Fellow scholarships create access for individuals who traditionally have limited access to this type of training and will use a model that prioritizes the needs of the people i4Health aspires to serve. The novel i4Health model is built to expand across all communities by offering a matching Health Fellow scholarship for every paid participant. The program seeks individual, foundation, and corporate sponsors for the Health Fellow scholarships.
Students gain skills that result in impressive outcomes including company spinouts, SBIR funding (>$4M to date), SXSW presentations, pitch event winners, and prestigious industry fellowships, residencies, internships.
PROGRAM OFFERINGS
Courses/Workshops & Certificate Program
Lester Entrepreneurial Scholars Program
Microcredentials
Courses/Workshops & Certificate Program
i4Health utilizes a hands-on, applied learning, interactive experience and is designed to transform the way participants approach learning and ultimately, the way they solve problems. The courses and workshops incorporate a flipped classroom approach, allowing class time to focus on applying the concepts and maximizing time spent working collaboratively on team projects.
i4Health covers all areas of health: medicines, devices, and digital health applications. The successes emerging from the core courses are impressive, ranging from enhanced critical thinking and analytical skills that improve individual and team performance to new inventions, patents, grants, funding, company spinouts and prestigious fellowships and residency programs.
i4Health is a unique, comprehensive resource for delineating how all types of health innovations are developed and is targeted to engage students eager to learn and practice the skills needed to be successful in the workplace.
Courses
The three topics are offered as courses, workshops, and in conjunction comprise the certificate program:
- Fundamentals of Health InnovationsThe foundational innovation and entrepreneurship concepts are presented for understanding the process of developing novel drug therapies, medical devices, and digital health products.
- Health Innovations Practicum Student-led projects working in teams are the centerpiece of the practicum and culminate in a pitch event
- Health Innovation Dexterity Students are immersed in skill-building workshop sessions, learning how to be effective as they exit the university. This journey provides understanding of the real-life workplace.
Results Focused
With proper program support and funding, i4Health will provide the following:
- High-production value materials for i4Health online and in-person programming (currently offered through the University of Texas at Austin School of Pharmacy)
- Participants from a diverse range of demographics and training
- Stipends (need-based) to ensure interdisciplinary participation
- Curriculum for “Train the Trainer” certification program
- Global launch including communications, promotions, network management
Lester Entrepreneurial Scholars Program
The Lester Entrepreneurial Scholars Program atThe University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy is designed to prepare students, in professional and graduate programs, to develop entrepreneurial and innovative leadership and thinking skills to tackle healthcare issues in innovative new ways.
This prestigious and highly selective program is open to The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy Pharm.D. and Ph.D. students. Pharm.D. students must complete their first or second year of coursework in order to apply.
Goals:
- Identify, nurture, and promote entrepreneurship and innovation skills for student pharmacists and graduate students to utilize in their chosen field of work
- Generate innovative solutions that improve patients’ experience and their health
- Develop and grow a sustainable program that offers opportunities for students to expand their entrepreneurial, dynamic thinking, and collaboration skills
Outcomes:
- Capabilities – students utilize entrepreneurial thinking, innovation, and leadership to participate in developing new products and services
- Capacity – facilities and tools for design, prototypes, experimentation and collaboration
- 48 students selected 2017-2023, including a Fullbright Scholar
- 2 companies launched
- 12 prestigious industry fellowship, residencies, internships
- Annual pitch event
Microcredentials
Microcredentials – specifically badges – fulfill unique needs of students, programs, and employers by providing portable, verifiable digital records of achievement. They offer flexibility to acknowledge both accomplishments at the micro-credential level and progress in stackable learning pathways, allowing recipients to highlight competencies that are not otherwise readily apparent. Microcredentials present a framework for thinking comprehensively about teaching and the development of competencies in education.
The i4Health badges are being developed to provide verifiable digital records that acknowledge a mastery of knowledge, skills, and/or abilities for a given context (competence badges). All badges contain metadata with detailed information about the achievement and earning criteria. Badges can be presented for a wide range of activities, including completing a certificate program, demonstrating a lab skill, or mastering an activity.
Example of badge topics include:
- Human Centered Design Thinking
- Competitive Benchmarking
- Customer Discovery
- Payors and Reimbursement
- Intellectual Property for Health Innovations
- Health Innovation Pathways