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Show Dennis Moser Selected As Director Of Area Health Education Center At SUU CEDAR CITY Dennis Moser, a long-time health care professional at Garfield Memorial Hospital in Panguitch has been named director of the newly created Southern Utah Area Health Education Center (AHEC) headquartered at Southern Utah University. Eventually four AHEC areas will be developed to cover the entire state of Utah. A central Utah AHEC, created in 1996, is online and functioning. An eastern Utah center will be organized in 1998, and a northern Utah center will start up in 1999. The southern Utah AHEC will serve Garfield, Beaver, Kane, Iron and Washington counties. Moser began his 22 years at Garfield Memorial as an x-ray technician. After completing a bachelor's degree in health services administration at Weber State University and a master's degree in health administration at the University of Colorado, he served in administrative capacities. capaci-ties. Moser was assistant administrator adminis-trator and director of the Long Dennis Moser Term Care facility at Garfield Memorial at the time of his appointment to AHEC. The ultimate goal of AHEC activities is to address the shortages short-ages of health care professionals in rural and underserved areas. Improving health care in these areas of the Utah, through education, is the major goal of the AHEC program. In order to meet that goal, AHEC will introduce young people from rural and underserved communities to health care careers, localizing training for health profession students in the target communities, commun-ities, providing continuing education educa-tion support for existing health care professionals and listening to (See Dennis Moser To AHEC on Page 2-A) Moser To AHEC From Front Page communities to identify health care needs. Moser is currently in the process of creating an executive board and an advisory committee to assist in the operation of the southern Utah chapter. He will be hiring a secretary, administrative assistant, placement coordinator and outreach education specialist. The AHEC concept was first introduced in the 1970 Carnegie Commission Report on Higher Education and the Nation's Health, as a mechanism for alleviating alle-viating the shortage and maldistribution maldistri-bution of health care providers. By 1997 the national AHEC network net-work had expanded to include 45 programs and approximately 178 community-based centers in 41 states that had received federal funding support. Moser was born and reared in Jackson, Wyo. He and his wife, LeeAnn are parents of two daughters. |