First, I want to thank all of those folks who made the Annual Meeting a great success. As usual, the AUPHA staff did a marvelous job organizing the event. The Planning Committee did an excellent job reviewing and selecting the educational sessions and posters from over 100 submissions. The educational sessions I was able to attend, and the Faculty Forum meetings that I was able to participate in, were an encouraging representation of the creativity and commitment of our members to strengthening the field of healthcare education.
Former AUPHA Board Chair Ken Johnson, our new CEO Jerry Glandon, and I attended a meeting in June that focused on board development. During one of the sessions, the session leader asked us to consider an important question, “If your organization disappeared tomorrow, would someone re-create it?” Given all the changes that are taking place in both healthcare and education, this question struck us as a call to review the purposes and contributions of AUPHA to healthcare management education. We also noted that the most recent strategic plan for AUPHA covered the years 2011 – 2014, making this an opportune time for such a review and, perhaps, a renewal of the organization’s commitment to the critical undertaking of educating the future leaders of healthcare.
As this year’s board chair, I have three interrelated priorities for the coming year: First, we should review our mission and vision to make sure they are still relevant and will remain vibrant during this time of tremendous change. Mission and vision statements without action to support them are meaningless. This review will be the basis for creating a new strategic plan and goals for the next phase of AUPHA’s organizational life. Second, we need to build depth and breadth in the organization. In terms of breadth, we need to increase our diversity, in terms of demography but also in the types of programs and individuals who are engaged in furthering the goals of the organization. In terms of depth, we need to develop more avenues for individuals to grow within AUPHA committees and forums in order to build an even stronger pool of candidates and a more transparent pathway to board positions. Third, we need to consider how to discern and support the educational priorities of our member institutions. For those of us who are faculty members of graduate programs, CAHME’s decision to eliminate specific curricular subject area requirements from their accreditation criteria have raised some angst but also provided us with a great opportunity to shape the future of graduate-level healthcare management education. For those faculty members in undergraduate programs, our Undergraduate Committee has done a very good job of identifying key areas of educational content for graduates. Nevertheless, given the changes in healthcare and in education that we all anticipate, we should review the basic knowledge and skill attributes that our students’ employers will expect in the future. In addition, we should support one another in identifying the most effective technological and pedagogical approaches to instilling that knowledge and those skills.
During the June board meeting, the board focused on these priorities. As a first step, we charged Jerry Glandon to develop a process for moving forward and recruiting members from the faculty forums, former board leaders, and current board members to produce a new strategic plan for the membership to consider, discuss, and vote on by the close of the 2015 Annual Meeting.
Please engage your board members and colleagues in and outside your own institutions in this process. I encourage you to reach out to me or any of the board members or the members of the strategic planning groups when they are announced with ideas, concerns, and offers to support this effort.
Many of you have begun your fall semesters and, if you are like me, are feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the activities of launching a new semester and school year. At the same time, for me at least, it is really gratifying to see the strength of the students who are matriculating into our programs and to learn of the accomplishments of our students over the summer. I hope this will be your best academic year to date.