Nursing Alumna Wins U Leadership Award

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

U of M Nursing Alumna Receives Leadership Award
Revolutionized Nursing Education in Korea

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (April 27, 2004) -- A University of Minnesota School of Nursing alumna, Hyeoun Ae Park, Ph.D., M.S.N., M.S., has received one of the University's prestigious Leadership Award for Internationals. The award recognizes international alumni, former students and friends of the University who have distinguished themselves in their post-university work as leaders in their professional careers awarded.

Park was honored for having started the first graduate-level nursing informatics major in Korea and for developing strong links between the University of Minnesota School of Nursing and the College of Nursing at Seoul National University (SNU). Health informatics uses mathematics, statistics, computing, engineering, management and information sciences to solve problems arising in biology, medicine and health care delivery.

Park received her academic preparation at the University of Minnesota, earning an M.S. in nursing in 1983, an M.S. in biometry and health information systems in 1986 and a Ph.D. in biometry and health information systems in 1987.

She returned to Korea in 1987, and as one of few Korean nurses with a Ph.D., was asked to work with the Korean Institute of Health and Social Affairs on research on national health care systems. Her five years at the institute resulted in the adoption of national guidelines for health care manpower planning. She introduced informational technology to the nationwide emergency call system dispatch and the public health center systems and she revolutionized nursing education by introducing the first statistical consulting lab and computer lab in a Korean nursing school.

Park returned to the University of Minnesota in 1995 for a year as a post-doctoral fellow. For the past 12 years, she has served as a distinguished faculty member of the College of Nursing at SNU.

She currently chairs the Technical Advisory Group of the Korean Health Informatics Standards Agency and has represented Korea as a member of the International Council of Nurses and the International Medical Informatics Association. In 2006 she will chair the ninth International Nursing Informatics Conference in Korea.

This year five Distinguished Leadership for Internationals Awards were made, including the one to Park. When these awards were first made last year, Rozina Karmaliani, who earned both her nursing master's and Ph.D. at the School of Nursing, was one of the nine awardees.

The University of Minnesota School of Nursing is ranked among the nation's top five nursing schools. It is a leader in nursing research and has a combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment of approximately 700 students. As the state's nursing flagship, the school produces 55 percent of the faculty in Minnesota's public and private nursing schools, advanced practice nurses and nurses who can assume leadership positions. It is the only school in Minnesota to award a nursing Ph.D., and it has the largest graduate program at the University of Minnesota. It is the world's oldest continuing university-based school of nursing.

The School of Nursing is one of seven schools and colleges in the Academic Health Center, one of the most comprehensive education and research facilities for health professionals in the nation, fostering interdisciplinary study and research.

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