I was installed as Chair of the AUPHA Board at the Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, where I offered some thoughts about AUPHA and the field of Health Management Education. While the Annual Meeting was successful, only a small number of AUPHA member faculty were able to attend, so I want to share these thoughts with the entire membership. What follows are my annotated remarks at the Annual Business Meeting. I want to hear your thoughts as well, so please reach out to me or post yours to the AUPHA Forum.
Good afternoon. Thank you so much for your support and confidence.
I want to take a few minutes to talk about my thoughts about AUPHA and the field of Health Management Education. AUPHA is celebrating 70 years this year, and our theme for this Annual Meeting is Looking Back to Look Forward. Most if not all of you have received a copy of the AUPHA History—Thank you once again to all of the authors and to Mike Meacham, Diane Howard, and Health Administration Press—and I encourage you all to read it. I’ve read it, and I found it most illuminating. The AUPHA history is available in electronic form on the AUPHA Members Only section of the web site now. It highlights a number of issues; controversies; challenges; disagreements; whatever you choose to call them that endure to this day.
- Where should graduate programs be located? Schools of Public Health, Schools of Business, Allied Health, somewhere else?
- How long should the program be, and what kind of experiential component should be included?
- Should AUPHA offer membership to Undergraduate Programs?
- How do we create a body of knowledge around both health management education and health services research?
- How do we establish the quality of our programs, through accreditation and certification? Process or outcome; that is, competency-based?
- How do we educate the next generation of faculty?
- Do we change the “H” from Hospital to Health?
And,
- How do we work together with other entities, organizations, interested parties, other disciplines, to advance the vision of developing leaders who possess the values and competencies necessary to drive improvement throughout the health system, and the mission of fostering excellence and innovation in health management, policy education, and scholarship?
These have been enduring questions and challenges for the field since AUPHA was founded in 1948. Your Board has been thinking about these challenges and has been Looking Forward. Under Keith’s leadership, we have asked the Board the following questions:
- What do you foresee as primary concerns/issues for the health care management industry in the future?
- You could come up with many challenges here, as we did. Some may echo those that Dr. Filerman presented to us yesterday. Dr. Gary Filerman gave the opening Patullo Lecture at the Annual Meeting. His remarks will be published in an upcoming issue of JHAE. Some may differ. But I think we would all agree that the challenges are significant, and that continuing as we have will not be sufficient to prepare our students for them.
- What do you foresee as primary concerns/issues for the higher education industry in the future?
- Again, there are many challenges here, including cost, affordability, access—sound familiar?—that is, what is the value proposition? We may think that in our enclaves we are immune to these challenges. We are not.
- What do you foresee as primary concerns/issues for AUPHA in the future?
This is the key question before us, of course. The Board generated a long list of concerns and issues for AUPHA in the future. Rather than enumerate this list, which is unlikely to include anything that most of you haven’t already identified and grappled with, let me just say that the Board recognizes that we are in a time that requires visionary leadership and support for all of our member programs as they navigate these challenges, or Climate Change, to borrow from Dr. Filerman.
While AUPHA, with its long history and diverse and vibrant membership is THE forum for the discussions and debates that need to take place to rise to these challenges, it is also clear that AUPHA cannot and should not function alone in this effort of the field of health management education to transform itself, not only to meet these challenges, but also to shape the future of health management education and the health of the populations we are here to serve.
We as a field have a choice. We must make a choice. We can hang on to old agendas—should we include undergraduate programs, should we accredit programs based on competency attainment, should we train people to manage hospitals, health care organizations, or communities of people, and the list goes on—or, should we come together as a field, and focus our energies on rising to the challenges? Should we help each other as we struggle to rise to the challenges? Or, do we strive amongst ourselves for a share of the diminishing resources the environment offers?
I submit that there is only one answer to this question. Dr. Filerman, at the Patullo Lecture, said, and I quote: “I am deeply concerned about the future of Health Management Education.”
So am I. My question to you is, “How do we rise to the challenge?” Do we rise together, as a field, united, or do we lose sight of the vision and mission, and while we are each individually absorbed with efforts to maintain the status quo, let the world of policy and management practice pass us by? Rest assured, if we choose that path, there will be others in the health management education that will pass us by. For example, here I am thinking of the world of physician leadership. Forget the MBA vs. MHA debate. We must look to the future.
So, for me, the answer to the question; “How do we rise to the challenge?” is that we rise above, together, to meet the challenge, for the sake of our students, and for the health of those we endeavor to serve. My pledge to you is to work with you and your Board to continue the legacy of AUPHA as the premier forum for the field to rise to the challenge and meet the future head on.
Thank you.