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Innovation is the pursuit of new solutions to challenges. At the summit, we’ll combine traditional business innovation frameworks, with lessons in entrepreneurship, and key principles in implementation science. We approach innovation by breaking down industry silos to draw upon the strengths of each and create more effective approaches.

You’ll learn tools and best practices to quickly work through our proven cross-functional innovation approach:

  1. Identify - Lay the foundation for the innovation process by examining and defining the assumed problem and the target audience.
  2. Develop - Consider the different ways in which we can solve the defined problem. Start broadly and, through feedback and consideration, work toward a refined concept to pilot.
  3. Test - With our assumed solution, we design a strategy to test it and solve for any unseen issues.
  4. Implement - Address any needed changes in the testing phase. Launch the actual, final solution in a real-world environment.
  5. Monitor + Sustain - Evaluate and adjust our solution as it and the environment evolve. Consider the supports needed to sustain the efforts.

By the end of the summit, you’ll leave with a pilot design, implementation strategy and organizational buy-in techniques needed to test a solution to a real-world problem at your organizations.

Rollins Innovation Summit Sessions:

In addition to the curriculum highlighted above, attendees will participate in the following summit sessions: 

Summit Welcome
James W. Curran, MD, MPH

Jim Curran, James W. Curran Dean of Public Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; Emeritus Co-Director, Emory Center for AIDS Research; will welcome attendees to the inaugural Rollins Innovation Summit Day 1.

Your Map is No Good Here: Lessons from the Field
Ben Garrett, M.Div.

Ben will guide summit attendees in a session on the why and how of community innovation – enabling them to clearly define the community they are working with and how they can create an environment for genuine co-design with this community.

Socializing Your Pilot
Shannon Clute, PhD, MA

Summit attendees will be passionate about their public health innovation pilot. They will know the impact it could have and where it might lead. However, how can they transfer that to their colleagues back at their organization? Shannon will lead attendees in learning how to socialize their pilot so it doesn’t end with just a plan.

Attendees will kick off early in the summit with Moose’s What is Public Health? session, helping level-set the roles, responsibilities and potential for public health.

Epidemiology 101
Jodie Guest, PhD, MPH

Jodie will present Epidemiology 101. In addition to getting their footing on basic epidemiology terms, attendees will learn the principles of study design and how to use data literacy when navigating the media.

Policy 101
Ken Thorpe, PhD

In Policy 101, Ken will lead attendees in understanding the basics and ethics of policies, understanding the major changes taking place right now in governmental policies and how that is spurring innovation, and how using incremental and fast policymaking fosters large change.

Epidemiology in Action
Eric Pevzner, PhD, MPH

Eric, Chief of the Epidemiology Workforce Branch (EWB) and Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) at the CDC, will provide attendees with an authentic look at epidemiology in action. EIS is a long-standing, globally recognized program, renowned for its investigative and emergency response efforts.

Social Behavior 101
Cam Escoffery, PhD, MPH

Cam will guide attendees in theories for behavior change, focusing on the guiding principles to keep in mind as you investigate and go through a project analysis. The session will lead attendees to understand how to frame the problem and solutions as they work to understand the multiple levels of interventions needed to put real structures in place to support change. This will be supported by an understanding of the interim- and long-term data points available to measure success.

Public Health Informatics 101
Mark Conde

Mark and Elizabeth will jump into the concept of systems thinking in taking a broader approach against a problem – leading attendees through tools such as information flow modeling to taking a systems perspective to the information/data within an ecosystem. They will also use examples within public health and clinical informatics (e.g., electronic medical records) to discuss system interoperability and harnessing the capability of APIs to make stronger systems and innovate new solutions (e.g., mobile apps).

Applied Global Health – Co-design and Landscape Analysis
Rachel Hall-Clifford, PhD, MPH, MSc

Rachel and Gari will lead attendees in an applied global health session, focusing on co-design, which is the linchpin to program sustainability in a global setting, and landscape analysis/needs assessments/asset analysis within communities.

Program Evaluation 101
Laurie Gaydos, PhD

Laurie will guide attendees in understanding more about program evaluation – focusing on the components of program evaluation, why planning evaluation prior to program implementation is important, examples of program evaluation in action and an applied exercise to support attendees in learning Program Evaluation 101.

Global Health 101
Juan Leon, PhD, MPH

Juan will lead a session on how to make decisions in global health – considering the appropriate framework, evidence, environmental context, resources and population characteristics. He will also guide attendees in gaining insights into their cultural worlds, navigating who they are, who others are and the bridge between the two.

Environmental Health 101
Jeremy Sarnat, Sc.D., MSc

Jeremy will provide summit attendees with an introduction on environmental exposures and public health, focusing on emerging environmental challenges as well as methods for examining these critical relationships in our communities, homes and workplaces.

Applied Environmental Health
Natasha DeJarnett, PhD, MPH

Natasha will be speaking on applied environmental health, particularly her work with the Green Heart Louisville project, which is a first-of-its-kind scientific experiment testing if increasing green space in neighborhoods improves air quality and human health. Within the project, she is investigating how the stress of discrimination may modify the relationship between environmental exposures and health risks. 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Joanne McGriff, MD, MPH, JM

During Joanne’s DEI session, she will cover DEI terminology to level-set knowledge for attendees and discuss how to co-design with stakeholders and work with teams in a way that is fair and equitable (e.g., equity in having a voice, considering cultural history and team composition).

Healthcare Analytics 101
Sheri Tejedor, MD, SFHM

Sheri and Bruce will guide attendees in learning about traditional data sources and then where leading-edge organizations are going, tools for managing unstructured data, data governance and issues both in equity and ethics of healthcare data, and the good and bad of data visualization.

Cities of Today and the Future - A Collaboration of Industry and Public Health
Jim Durrett, MS

Jim Durrett, Executive Director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, will share with summit attendees the application of smart growth principles and concepts of livable communities to advance public health and how none of this is possible without the collaboration of both industry and public health.

Data-Informed Decision Making
Tommy Pearce, MSW

Neighborhood Nexus Executive Director Tommy Pierce will present on the work of Neighborhood Nexus in building a culture of data-driven decision-making among Georgia’s social sector and its collaborative efforts to pull data for real-time insights.

Kimberly will share closing remarks with the attendees of the inaugural Rollins Innovation Summit on Day 10.