Women’s Health Council events receive top marks for content and quality. Our upcoming event is listed below. If you have missed an event, the content is available using the menu below

Upcoming Event

Training 

Learning Series on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Health Care Delivery

May 20, 4:30 – 6:30 PM
June 10, 4:30 – 6:00 PM
September 23, 4:30 – 6:30 PM
October 14, 4:30 – 6:00 PM

Location: Live Online via Zoom

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Our Mission

Our mission is to bring more cost effective, evidence-based improvements for women’s health care into integrated practice, through research, education, improved clinical care, and policy and advocacy.

Research

•    Pose new questions for investigation
•    Institute steps for evaluation and continual improvement
•    Translate research and new therapies into effective practice and policy

Education

•    Expand the provider audience to include all individuals who care for the physical, mental or social health of women
•    Inform providers in all areas of women’s health
•    Link providers across disciplines in the discussions
•    Engage providers in partnering with women to encourage healthy lifestyle choices
•    Improve women’s access to appropriate physical, mental and social health care

Clinical Care

•    Identify areas of primary prevention and disease management
•    Enable integration across care disciplines
•    Identify women at risk and improve their outcomes

Policy and Advocacy

•    Affect women’s health care policy
•    Improve systems of, payment for, and monitoring of metrics of care delivery
•    Have an impact at the local, state and national levels

We will know we are successful

• When more research is directed to those areas that will improve policy and outcomes in women’s health.
• When payers use the data that proves the value of integrated on-going care to provide appropriate coverage.
• When new practices and therapies flow through a ready channel from theory to clinical implementation.
• When the social, mental and physical health of a woman is routinely considered by providers and payers who respond with a plan.
• When communication barriers are overcome so women are better able to access the system.
• When the Rhode Island Women’s Health Report Card demonstrates improved quality indicators that distinguish us nationally.

Council Leadership

We serve the women of Southeastern New England, spanning the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The population includes approximately one million women. A multitude of immigrant populations are attracted to this area, which embraces tolerant health care. Our focus on a non-traditional definition of women’s health is a culturally-competent approach that includes all age ranges and disease.

Co-Chairs

Carrie B. Feliz, MPH
Peg Miller, MD, FACP,

Brief History

In January 2008, Karen Rosene-Montella, MD, then Chief of Medicine at Women & Infants Hospital, and Mary Reich Cooper, MD, JD, Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer at Lifespan Corporation, convened the Women’s Health Council of RI with the intent of improving the quality of health care for women across the state.

As the co-chairs report, “We wanted to fill gaps in care, encourage innovative models, develop collaborative quality and research initiatives, and redefine women’s healthcare as more than GYN care only. We also hoped to make Rhode Island a demonstration project for quality measures in women’s health that would be promoted by the Council.”

Today the Council’s Mission is clear. All of its activities are designed to bring the expanded definition of women’s health care to the public: as a promise and in practice.

See our past events here

Our Initiatives

The Women’s Health Council of RI holds annual quality conferences and critical workshop trainings. We develop Women’s Health Report Cards, which target areas of risk for women’s health and track how RI is doing. We create “pocket cards” for providers use, available as free downloads from our website. And we regularly invite representatives of community health agencies to participate in our events, so full-spectrum viewpoints are presented to a diverse audience.

In October 2010, our first annual conference, and the first quality conference for women’s health in Rhode Island, we introduced the community to the Council and our approach to expanding health care for women. We have continued to follow up the information from the Conferences with in-depth Critical Workshop Trainings for RI providers, payors and policy-makers.

The Women’s Health Council sponsors Conferences and Critical Workshop Trainings. Long after the events are over, information from the events, panelists and speakers remain available on this site in a variety of formats.

Pocket Cards are pocket size screening tools that contain the latest questions and language for provider use to gain clarity on a patient’s condition and make referrals.

Presentation Slides were compiled by event panelists and contain in-depth statistics on event topics.

Report Cards track specific statistics on the state of Women’s Health in RI.

Videos of speakers delivering talks were recorded at our Women’s Health Conferences.