Membership

AcademyHealth defines a patient collaborator as an individual with a lived experience of a health issue/condition requiring direct care from health care providers. The patient collaborator designation includes informal caregivers, advocates, and navigators.
Individuals who meet the definition of a “patient collaborator” will be able to participate in AcademyHealth initiatives as a “patient collaborator”, including:

• Membership
• Conference abstract submission
• Conference abstract review
• Conference planning committee inclusion
• Patient scholarship eligibility
• Patient registration rate eligibility
• Programmatic initiatives
• AcademyHealth volunteer groups

Who qualifies to join AcademyHealth as a patient collaborator member?
The patient collaborator membership category is available for individuals with a lived experience of a health issue/condition requiring direct care from health care providers, as well as their informal caregivers.
The patient collaborator membership category also applies to patient advocates and navigators, whose primary role is to benefit and represent the patient’s best interests (e.g. advocates and navigators employed by community health clinics or federally qualified centers).

Who does not qualify to join AcademyHealth as a patient collaborator member?
Individuals who have full-time employment in an official capacity as a health services researcher, policy maker, analyst, investigator, administrator, or any other capacity within the health care field. These individuals may join as professional, international, new professional, or student members as applicable.

The “retiree” category provides the ability for members to stay engaged in health services and health policy research. Criteria:

• Individual has retired from full-time professional working status in health services research or other profession.
• For those professionals who continue to serve in various professional functions, individual works less than 10 hours per week for an organization or private consulting. Or, less than 25% of their annual income is derived directly from professional work (excludes retirement benefits/income).