UK Students Compete in Clarion Competition

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 25, 2010) – University of Kentucky students representing the colleges of Dentistry, Health Sciences, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Public Health will participate in the UK campus's Clarion Competition Monday, March 8, from 5 to 8 p.m. The location is to be determined.

The Clarion competition enables students to achieve a 360-degree perspective on patient safety in today's health care system and how it might be improved. The point of the competition is to take a systems approach to a hypothetical case scenario in which the health system failed and analyze what went wrong by creating a root cause analysis. Teams demonstrate how to improve the system by utilizing each student's particular health discipline-related perspective. The final analysis is presented to a team of interprofessional judges that evaluate each analysis in the context of real-world standard practice.

The teams will be judged on presentation content, presentation style, and a Q&A.  The winner of the local competition will represent UK at the National Clarion Competition in Minneapolis April 9-11.

The students, selected by UK faculty mentors, include:

College of Dentistry: Carl Chandler

College of Health Sciences: Alma Ferrier

College of Law: Amber Swain and Steven Blevins

College of Medicine: David Nelson, Shea Ponter, Ayodeele Osasona and David Bardach

College of Pharmacy: Stacia Street and Cassandra Hickman

College of Public Health: Debie Dunn and Shani Bardach

The Clarion Competition empowers health care professional students to work together to build a better health care system, and strives to improve patient safety and the quality of care through the promotion and development of interprofessional leadership, teamwork, and communication. For more information, visit the Clarion Web site.