Going the distance: the evolution of VCU's Executive Distance Learning Program over 12 years

Drawing upon the twelve-year history of Virginia Commonwealth University's (VCU) online distance learning Executive Program, this article identifies factors important to the success of online distance learning and major changes in distance learning over time. It discusses curriculum, instructional design, technology infrastructure and support, educational strategy and pedagogy, faculty, and student program dimensions. As one of the oldest online health administration or business programs, the Executive Program at VCU and this examination thereof are particularly suited to identify significant lessons learned from experience with online education. The article concludes with a summary of challenges facing this and other distance learning programs in health administration.     

The status of experiential learning among graduate programs in health administration

Today's programs in health administration are faced with dramatic changes both from within the university and from the field of practice. These changes include new criteria for accreditation by ACEHSA, recent volatility in the market-place for new graduates, charges of separateness between university programs and the field of practice, and tightening of university budgets. One issue affected by these changes is the role and value of experiential learning in the graduate curriculum. This article reports on a survey of AUPHA member programs regarding the status of experiential learning in their programs.     

New curriculum challenges in health administration education

Tradition curriculum content and structure in health administration education programs have focused on the managing of individual institutions, the business function, and the hospital as the center of the health system. These assumptions are challenged by managed care, with its orientation on integrating the business and clinical functions; prevention and primary care; and the provision of services through integrated service networks. The design and process of curriculum change in response to new organization structures and management challenges are explored.     

The demand for graduate education in health services administration: a case study

This article documents research into the demand for graduate education in health services administration/management with a case study model. Research included background information on the profession, the history of graduate education in health services administration, health care administrator demographics and their perceptions of the demand for graduate-prepared professionals and their own educational needs, most appropriate degree to offer, and curriculum content. The findings support the trend toward a balance between specific and general health care business skills in graduate education. Other schools may benefit from the student profile, program delivery, appropriate degree information, and curriculum content findings as well as the research instrument design and methodology when assessing and planning graduate programs in health services administration/management.     

Competencies for rural health administrators

Rural healthcare and rural health administration have been changing rapidly. An evolution in policies, regulations and reimbursement practices combine to make the skills required of the new health service administration graduate significantly different from those required even a few years ago. This paper forms an initial articulation of core competencies required for rural health administrators. It focuses on health administration education programs that focus on or offer learning experiences in rural health administration. To competently address the unique characteristics of rural populations and facilities, administrators should demonstrate capability in multiple areas. These include unique applications of health management tools to rural environments, understanding designated reimbursement mechanisms for financing rural facilities, and development of leadership skills for dealing with multi-disciplinary management teams and evaluation of small organizations.     

Service learning: integrating student learning and community service

Health professions education is directly effected by changes in health care service delivery and financing systems. In the United States, as the health care industry increasingly shifts to a market economy, service delivery venues are moving away from acute care facilities and into community-based settings. Additionally, there is increased emphasis on primary prevention programs, often provided in public health settings. For health professions programs that traditionally provide clinical training in hospitals and long-term care facilities, there are unique challenges associated with identifying new venues in order to insure that students are exposed to a wide variety of patients with a range of chronic to acute disease conditions. One set of tools that has demonstrated usefulness during these kinds of transitions is service learning. This teaching methodology emphasizes increased partnership with clinical training sites, extensive orientation to patient populations and community resources, structured reflection and instilling the ethic of service in future health care providers. Although this article describes utilization of service learning in the context of current conditions in the United States, we hope that the principles presented here can be readily adapted in any setting.     

Teaching community Oriented Primary Care in a traditional medical school: A two year progress report

Efforts are being made to extend the practice of Community Oriented Primary Care by reorienting existing health services or restructuring medical education curricula. Nevertheless, changes in education must be simultaneous to changes in health services so that health professionals trained in COPC will find areas to practice COPC. The experience described in this article presents an effort in these two directions. A teaching program was introduced in a traditional medical school curriculum and was extended to six health services by training the directors of the health service as teaching instructors of COPC or closely coordinating actions with the director of the health service. The results of the program show fulfillment of learning objectives and student satisfaction with the program. Evaluations of the development of COPC in the health services involved show modifications in health programs to meet community needs and stronger community leadership and organization.     

Service Learning in an Occupation-Based Curriculum: Student Commentary

Recent trends toward occupation-based practice and the move toward masters-level occupational therapy (OT) education has forced OT educators to reevaluate their programs to meet the needs of the contemporary health care environment. Service learning is one way to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) Program at Cleveland State University (CSU), in keeping with its focus on occupation, incorporates three service-learning components into its curriculum. This paper, written by a second-year MOT student at CSU, discusses two of these experiences in depth. The first, which took place at a homeless shelter, included both a didactic and “clinical” component, with an emphasis on community-based mental health OT services. The second, which included a training component and a structured program, involved co-leading after-school social-emotional learning groups for low-income urban youth. Both experiences served to expand the clinical skills and reasoning of the MOT students while introducing both the students and agencies to the role of OT in non-traditional community settings. Based on these experiences, the author highly recommends that all masters-level OT programs should, if they have not done so already, institute service learning as a core component of their curricula, in order to prepare their students for contemporary OT practice.     

Teaching and learning teamwork: competency requirements for healthcare managers

This paper addresses an essential element of postgraduate health service management education - development of individual competencies to enhance teamwork among health service managers. A survey of qualified health service managers in the state of Victoria, Australia revealed a set of individual competencies that the managers felt made a positive contribution to the success of workplace teams. The identified competencies included skills in leadership and communication; clinical knowledge and knowledge of organizational goals and strategies; motives such as commitment to the organization, to quality, to working collaboratively and to a consumer focus; and respect for others as a trait. Building on acknowledged teaching and learning theories, a teamwork teaching and learning model was successfully introduced into the postgraduate health services management curriculum at La Trobe University in Melbourne.     

Promoting job safety for workers with intellectual disabilities: the staying safe at work training curriculum

In the United States, approximately 125,000 people with disabilities are employed through Community Rehabilitation Programs in manufacturing, assembly, and service jobs. These jobs have significant hazards and, consequently, the workers are at risk of injury. Training that empowers workers to participate in prevention efforts can help reduce work-related injuries. In general this kind of health and safety training in the United States is limited. It is even more so for workers with intellectual disabilities, in part because there have not been programs for teaching individuals with cognitive challenges health and safety skills, adapted to their learning needs. This paper describes the development and promotion of the Staying Safe at Work curriculum of UC Berkeley's Labor Occupational Health Program, which is designed for use by support agencies and employers of workers with intellectual disabilities. The goal of this program is to teach these workers essential occupational safety and health skills in a manner they can understand.     

Developing service-based teaching in health education for medical students.

In the expanding concern about the social-behavioral aspects of health care in medical education, health education has opportunities for making itself an important part of basic medical training. The need is to actually define a physician's appropriate educational tasks and competencies as a basis for curriculum development in health education which would ideally be integrated into the whole educational program. This case study presents efforts to develop an educational service component at a rural health center which, connected to a major teaching hospital, serves as a learning base for medical students. Through trial and student feedback a program has been developed which includes patient counseling, evaluative home visits, group education sessions, exit interviews, medication counseling, community needs assessment and educational consultation with local school teachers. With this program as a foundation, the goal is to integrate health education learning throughout the rest of the medical curriculum.     

Financial analysis in the health administration curriculum: a survey of ACEHSA programs.

Among the continuing curriculum issues in health administration programs is the appropriate amount of financial analysis. This field covers economics and financial management, with both subjects being given importance in the ACEHSA accreditation guidelines. This paper reports on a national survey of health administration programs intending to discover the importance placed on the study of economics and financial management. A second survey gathered information from alumni and preceptors of a specific ACEHSA program (the University of Massachusetts at Amherst) on their perception of the appropriate curriculum content for financial analysis. The most important conclusion of this study is the discovery that the long-accepted schism between school of public health and school of management programs does not exist. There are far more similarities than differences, at least in terms of financial management and economics. Financial analysis is a broad area and at present a great amount of diversity among programs is acceptable. The accreditation process may require narrower standards for this important content area.     

Designing Web-based telemedicine training for military health care providers

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the study was to ascertain those learning objectives that will initiate increased use of telemedicine by military health care providers. Telemedicine is increasingly moving to the center of the health care industry's service offerings. As this migration occurs, health professionals will require training for proper and effective change management. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is embracing the use of telemedicine and wishes to use Web-based training as a tool for effective change management to increase use. This article summarizes the findings of an educational needs assessment of military health care providers for the creation of the DoD Web-based telemedicine training curriculum. METHODS: Forty-eight health care professionals were interviewed and surveyed to capture their opinions on what learning objectives a telemedicine training curriculum should include. RESULTS: Twenty learning objectives were found to be needed in a telemedicine training program. These 20 learning objectives were grouped into four learning clusters that formed the structure for the training program. In order of importance, the learning clusters were clinical, technical, organizational, and introduction to telemedicine. FINDINGS: From these clusters, five Web-based modules were created, with two addressing clinical learning needs and one for each of the other learning objective clusters.     

Psychological types of health administration students: suggestions for teaching, learning, and the future of the profession

In this article, the configurations of psychological types that exist among a sample of 393 American graduate health administration students are analyzed. These data are compared to the psychological type characteristics of both university-level faculty and practicing health care administrators. Important insights can be derived from these comparisons in terms of teaching and learning in health administration programs, and they serve as a foundation for a coming transformation within the profession of health services administration.     

A comparison of academic curricula in the MPH and MHA-type degrees in health administration at the accredited schools of public health

Based on a survey of the departments of health services administration in accredited schools of public health, this study presents (1) a profile of the M.P.H. and M.H.A. (and similar) programs concentrating in health administration, and (2) a comparison of the M.P.H. and M.H.A. degrees. All 27 schools currently accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) are represented in this research. The curriculum from each school was broken down and classified into eight components: (1) epidemiology, (2) statistics, (3) accounting/finance, (4) management theory, (5) management application, (6) public health policy, (7) electives, and (8) other. That the M.H.A. programs compared to the M.P.H. programs, have higher course requirements to furnish skills in business management and quantitative/analytical areas is the main hypothesis tested. Statistically significant differences were found in seven of the eight curriculum components for M.P.H. and M.H.A. degrees. Overall, the M.H.A. degree was found to be more rigorous in applied management and analytical courses. Implications and recommendations are discussed.     

Social Justice in Medical Education: Strengths and Challenges of a Student-Driven Social Justice Curriculum

In the current rapidly evolving healthcare environment of the United States, social justice programs in pre-medical and medical education are needed to cultivate socially conscious and health professionals inclined to interdisciplinary collaborations. To address ongoing healthcare inequalities, medical education must help medical students to become physicians skilled not only in the biomedical management of diseases, but also in identifying and addressing social and structural determinants of the patients'' daily lives. Using a longitudinal Problem-Based Learning (PBL) methodology, the medical students and faculty advisers at the University of Hawai‘i John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) developed the Social Justice Curriculum Program (SJCP) to supplement the biomedical curriculum. The SJCP consists of three components: (1) active self-directed learning and didactics, (2) implementation and action, and (3) self-reflection and personal growth. The purpose of introducing a student-driven SJ curriculum is to expose the students to various components of SJ in health and medicine, and maximize engagement by using their own inputs for content and design. It is our hope that the SJCP will serve as a logistic and research-oriented model for future student-driven SJ programs that respond to global health inequalities by cultivating skills and interest in leadership and community service.     

The role of the educator in state, provincial, and federal health policy

Many faculty members of programs in health administration participate in the policy-setting process. It is critical at the present time of health care reform that faculty members play an active role in influencing health policy. Educators may become involved in this activity in a number of ways. First, there may be opportunities as researchers to conduct short-term or long-term projects which promote a policy agenda. Faculty members can bring a range of analytical skills and knowledge and may bring in multi-disciplinary perspectives on substantive policy issues. Second, educators need to re-examine curriculum content of university programs in health administration to assure appropriate policy content and to seek out opportunities for graduates in policy analysis positions. Third, through community services, educators may take on advocacy roles for the promotion of particular perspectives or the support of special interest groups. It is clear that there are going to be growing opportunities for faculty members to work with practitioners to substantially influence health policy.     

A civic engagement paradigm for reforming health administration education and recreating the community

The education of students of health administration has traditionally combined both the theoretical and practical to enhance and balance the learning experience. Classroom exposure to the principles of management, law, organizations, and finance is coupled with problem solving, practicum, internship, and administrative residency experiences. However, just as recent years have seen the developmentof courses from managed care and alternative delivery systems to total quality management and continuous quality improvement, there is also emerging an awareness of the need to enhance the practical side of the learning equation. Perhaps this need is finding expression in curricular opportunities for students to learn from a participatory model known as civic engagement (CE). CE is a way of integrating academic study and community service to strengthen learning while promoting civic and personal responsibility to strengthen communities. Based on experiences with graduate and undergraduate students spanning the last ten years at Texas State University--San Marcos (Texas State), it is suggested that a CE paradigm has been developed within the Department of Health Administration that merits consideration by other programs of health administration. As a model for change, it has the potential for reforming both health administration education and most other higher education disciplines as well.     

Benchmarking graduate health administration programs: stakeholders' perceptions

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare among key stakeholders the factors in graduate health care administration education that are perceived to be important for ranking, or benchmarking, based on the opinions of those stakeholders, i.e., program directors, faculty, graduate students, and accrediting agency commissioners. We used an original survey to obtain stakeholders' perceptions and opinions about important process and outcome measures. We sent it to all ACEHSA-accredited graduate health care administration programs in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico; to full-time faculty members in each program; to three current graduate students in each program, and to all ACEHSA commissioners. We performed frequency of responses, Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) tests, and Dunnett T3 tests. A response rate of 32 percent (n = 156) was achieved for all stakeholders. A total of 67 percent of all respondents reported that benchmarking graduate health care administration programs was important. The study results revealed a significant difference between populations on the importance of evaluating certain process and outcome measures related to curriculum, research, student characteristics, and resources. However, most of the stakeholders reported that curriculum, faculty, and graduate student performance were the key quality indicators of a program. The results of this study provide preliminary information for health care administration programs to begin to develop an educational benchmarking effort.     

Social and emotional learning: a framework for promoting mental health and reducing risk behavior in children and youth

ABSTRACT: Many programs have been developed to help schools enhance students' health and reduce the prevalence of drug use, violence, and high‐risk sexual behaviors. How should educators choose among these? This article describes selection criteria based on theory, research, and best educational practice that identify key social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies and program features. The SEL competencies for students include 17 skills and attitudes organized into four groups: awareness of self and others; positive attitudes and values; responsible decision making; and social interaction skills. The 11 program features critical to the success of school‐based SEL programs emphasize curriculum design, coordination with larger systems, educator preparation and support, and program evaluation. Developed by the Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the SEL framework can be used to guide selection of research‐based prevention programs that address health, substance abuse, violence prevention, sexuality, character, and social skills.