AUPHA Exchange
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
Department of Health Policy & Management Program News
September 11, 2012
Our first order of business is to share the wonderful news that the UCLA School of Public Health received a $50 million grant from Dr. Jonathan and Karin Fielding, leading to the renaming of our school to the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health, or the Fielding School as we now affectionately call it. Another exciting change is that we renamed our Department to the Department of Health Policy and Management from the Department of Health Services.
We are honored to have a new Dean, Dr. Jody Heymann, joining us at the Fielding School of Public Health, effective January 1, 2013. Dr. Heymann is currently professor of epidemiology and of political science at McGill University, where she serves as the founding director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy and holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy. Dr. Heymann holds a B.A. in history and physics from Yale University, and an M.D., MPP, and Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. Dr. Heymann’s focus will be on the continuum from local to global public health.
The UCLA Department of Health Policy & Management continues to collect accolades for its excellence. We received two top rankings this year from Modern Healthcare. Our MPH program was ranked in the top 10 of largest Health Administration programs for 2012. Our Executive MPH program ranked #8 in the top Health Care Business Programs for Physician Executives.
This past spring, The MPH Program Management Track received the full six year CAHME accreditation.
We are very proud of our academic and student achievements. Dr. Becky Yano of our faculty received the 2012 Under Secretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research. Dr. Toni Yancey, the Co-Director of our UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity received a Pioneering Innovation Award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for her work preventing obesity. Dr. Yancey is also on the board of the Partnership for a Healthier American, the non-profit organization behind First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.
Four of our 2nd year students won the Health Care Executives of Southern California Annual College Bowl Case Competition in April. Bryant Mata, Samantha Jones, Jennifer Holmes and Purvi Vira were the team members that won the trophy in the competition held on campus at UCLA. This marks the 4th year in a row that UCLA has won this event among the seven major health administration programs in the greater Los Angeles Area.
One of our first year students, Karen Lai placed 2nd out of almost 600 submissions in the annual KaiserEDU.org national student essay contest. Her essay was entitled, “The Impact of Medicaid on Health Reform.” Judges for this contest included Andy Bindman, MD of UC San Francisco; Sheila Burke of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Julie Rovner of NPR; Drew Altman, Ph.D., CEO and President of Kaiser Family Foundation; and Diane Rowland, ScD., Kaiser Family Foundation Executive Vice President.
An extensive evaluation of doctoral training programs in the US conducted by The National Research Council ranked the UCLA Department of Health Policy and Management as the #2 doctoral program among all doctoral programs in health services, health policy and health management in the US.
Every year, our Health Services Alumni Association holds its Annual Leaders of Today, Leaders of Tomorrow Dinner at which we honor individuals of national significance in health. This year we honored Ben Chu, MD, MPH, the President and CEO of Kaiser Southern California and Hawaii Region. Prior to coming to Southern California, Dr. Chu was the President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the largest public hospital system in the country.
We also celebrated and honored Paul Torrens, MD, MPH for 40 years of teaching excellence, student mentoring and practitioner support as he moves to Professor Emeritus, while continuing to teach in the Department. Dr. Torrens is the co-author of the widely recognized INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH SERVICES, now in its 7th edition.