The graduate technical assistance program: an alternative to traditional training for health administration students.

This paper presents a discussion of current modes of field training for graduate students in health services administration and details the educational goals and structural elements of the Graduate Technical Assistance Program (GTAP) at Arizona State University. The program's unique features include an emphasis on provider defined problems and projects, timely response to these problems by students, and the involvement of students, throughout their training, in consultant relationships with providers. The program also places the student in a new set of collaborative relationships with program faculty. The profiles of the 21 organizations requesting technical assistance, the skills required for project completion, and the range of projects are detailed.