Honolulu Star-Advertiser health reporter Kristen Consillio was named Media Person of the Year by the Hawaii Medical Association and the Honolulu County Medical Society.

She was honored at the Ola Pono Ike Medical Gala on Oct. 3 at Hilton Hawaiian Village. Ola Pono Ike, which means “health is knowledge,” helps create an awareness of health care issues and raises funds to support health care in Hawaii.

Consillio, who joined Star-Advertiser parent Oahu Publications Inc. in 2007, has been instrumental in the newspaper’s coverage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and the state’s ill-fated health insurance exchange, the Hawaii Health Connector.

She also was a Rural Health Journalism Fellow for the Association of Health Care Journalists in 2015 and 2014. In 2013 she was among 17 reporters nationwide chosen to participate in a New York City fellowship focusing on the business of health care, sponsored by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

In both 2012 and 2011 she was among 25 U.S.-based and international journalists selected for a United Nations Foundation Global Health Press Fellowship during the U.N. General Assembly.

Consillio also was part of a team that won a Best of the West Explanatory Reporting award in 2011. Her package, which was recognized as among the best in 14 states from the Rockies to Alaska and Hawaii, examined the public costs of senior health care.

In 2009 she was named Honolulu’s Small Business Journalist of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In addition, Consillio’s project on Hawaii’s critical shortage of doctors earned her recognition as Hawaii Medical Association’s Print Reporter of the Year in 2005.