The workshop will convene at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, March 19, 2001 at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. AHRQ will be providing travel funds for one representative (program director or faculty member) from each institutional training program. Each program is invited to send an additional representative at their own expense.

Following opening remarks on Monday, we plan to address important, cross-cutting topics in HSR curriculum design: education evaluation; cultural competency; and distance learning. The first day will conclude with dinner and remarks from our guest speaker.

On Tuesday, March 20, the workshop will reconvene at 8:30 a.m. with two plenary panel sessions addressing critical issues in health services research education and curriculum design. Following each panel discussion, participants will join concurrent breakout sessions of their choice to examine each topic in greater detail and to focus the discussion using their professional experience and insights on issues raised in the larger session.

About two weeks before the meeting, background materials will be made available to participants. By having you read these materials, we hope to foster a rich discussion regarding the further enhancement of health services research education for our trainees and fellows.

We anticipate several products from the AHRQ workshop, Building HSR Infrastructure Through Responsive Curricula. A report summarizing the formal presentations at the March 19 and 20 workshop, including findings, conclusions, discussion points, and recommendations, will be prepared. In addition, we will make the presentations, and other informative products resulting from the workshop, available on our Web site. These products might include examples of curricula developed through our innovation incentive awards, and citations from or electronic linkages to curricula information on other topics discussed at the workshop, such as educational program evaluation, long-distance learning, training in the ethical conduct of research, cultural competency training, or multidisciplinary education. We also anticipate that discussions at the meeting may lead to suggestions for further dissemination of useful educational materials.