MHAHPA
Master of Health Administration MHA PROGRAM ACCOLADES 2014 Leadership Award Alex Brennsteiner received the 2014 Leadership Award in recognition of his commitment to the MHA program’s values of integrity, empathy, leadership and innovation. The award was presented at a pre-Commencement Celebration Luncheon for the MHA Class of 2014 on May 11. Alex has accepted a position as the Manager of Quality Services for Forbes Hospice of the Allegheny Health Network.
2014 Fellowship and Placement Update Recent MHA graduates have been very successful in securing fellowships and other health care positions. To date, members of the Class of 2014 have started post-graduate fellowships at the Guthrie Clinic, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Lehigh Valley Health Network, Riverside Health System, and Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System. Other new MHA graduates have secured positions at the Advisory Board, Allegheny Health System, Capital Blue Cross, the Cleveland Clinic-Abu Dhabi, Deloitte & Touche, and Highmark Health.
Record Breaking Year for Recruiting The incoming class of 2016 represents the largest cohort in the history of Penn State’s residential MHA program. 20 students are expected for the fall semester orientation beginning Aug. 18. They represent the following undergraduate schools: Brigham Young University-Idaho, Clark University, Juniata College, Marquette University, Quingdao University in China, and the University of North Dakota, in addition to Penn State.
MHA Program Enrollments Residential MHA Year
Admitted
World Campus eMHA
Graduates
Admitted*
Graduates**
2011-12
16
10
NA
NA
2012-13
15
14
27
NA
2013-14
14
15
32
NA
2014-15
20
14
32
NA
* eMHA program admitted its first class in the Fall of 2012; ** eMHA program will graduate its first class in December of 2014
Kevin Hawkins, 2nd year student in the residential MHA program, reflects on an Emotional Intelligence exercise during the fall orientation Leadership Retreat at the Nature Inn at Bald Eagle State Park.
For two weeks in July, 27 eMHA students gathered on the University Park campus to partake in the second summer management intensive. While in residence, students learned from our experienced faculty and completed six credits of coursework in change leadership and organizational design.
Department of Health Policy and Administration | hhd.psu.edu/hpa/mha
MHA LEADERSHIP TEAM UPDATES Dr. Jonathan Clark has completed his first year as the Executive Director of the residential MHA program.
“By far the most rewarding part of this job is watching students progress into capable professionals,” Clark said. “It is very gratifying to watch successful undergraduates turn into sophisticated and experienced graduate students.”
Professor Joe Dionisio, continues as the Director of External Relations and Professional Development. “My role as Director of External Relations and Professional Development enables me to cultivate relationships with alums and non-alums who support our program(s) by providing summer internships and residencies and post graduation employment,” Dionisio said. “In addition, many of these same people have conducted grand rounds and served as guest speakers in our classrooms and mentors to our students. With an increasing enrollment, I hope to expand the cadre of healthcare professionals willing to share their experiences with us.”
Susan Sanders joined the team in February 2014 in the newly created position of Program Coordinator. She will be responsible for building recruiting efforts, managing admissions processes, and enhancing student advising. As program coordinator, Sanders will work with the MHA program to focus on strategic efforts to expand cohort size, build recruiting efforts and improve overall efficiency. “Undergraduate students are just beginning to learn about where they fit in the world,” Sanders said. “That includes everything from learning how to succeed in college to taking the first steps into life after graduation. MHA students are farther down the road, but they still need to be encouraged and challenged so that they can continue to become the leaders in health care that we expect them to be.”
Department of Health Policy and Administration
MARIANNE HILLEMEIER NAMED HEAD OF HPA Marianne Hillemeier, professor of health policy and administration and demography, and associate director of the Population Research Institute, has been named head of the Department of Health Policy and Administration (HPA) at Penn State. She assumed the position July 1. Hillemeier will replace Dennis Shea, who was named associate dean for undergraduate programs and outreach in the College of Health and Human Development last summer. Dianne Brannon, professor of health policy and administration, has served as interim department head. Hillemeier’s research focuses on disparities in children’s mental and physical health and health care services, and on children’s cognitive development and educational achievement. Her research interests also include disparities in women’s health, especially as they relate to adverse pregnancy outcomes. She is the author or co-author of more than 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and her research has been funded by grants from federal agencies, including the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the Institute of Education Sciences as well as other organizations, including the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. She has served on numerous committees, panels, task forces and boards, and has advised more than 35 Penn State graduate students. In addition, she is a member of American Public Health Association, the Population Association of America and AcademyHealth.
“I am honored and excited by the opportunity to work with the HPA faculty and staff to build our department through recruitment of additional faculty members, including senior health services researchers, and to promote excellence in research and in undergraduate and graduate education.”
– Marianne Hillemeier
Hillemeier earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Iowa in 1975, a master’s degree in nursing at Yale University in 1982, a master of public health degree at Harvard University in 1988 and a doctorate in sociology and demography at the University of Michigan in 1998. She joined the faculty of the Department of Health Policy and Administration at Penn State in 2002. “I am delighted to welcome Marianne Hillemeier into the college’s administrative team,” said Ann C. Crouter, Raymond E. and Erin Stuart Schultz Dean of the College of Health and Human Development. “Marianne has a well-deserved reputation as a strong collaborator and mentor, characteristics that will help her to be a productive, generative department head. I am looking forward to working with her to build the department in the years ahead.”
Master of Health Administration | hhd.psu.edu/hpa/mha
mer discussions the students had about the game became charged with friendly competition. For example, take this Yammer excerpt posted by student Jeanine Fadeley, an online M.H.A. student from Syracuse, N.Y., and directed at Lynch:
The “bad guys” in Jonathan Clark’s video game are not gun-wielding guerillas, fire-breathing dragons or flesh-eating zombies. Instead, the “antagonists” are wasted time, lost customers and reduced profits. In the summer of 2013, Clark -- assistant professor of health policy and administration and executive director of the Master of Health Administration (M.H.A.) program -- piloted a video game in his online M.H.A. class HPA 897A, Healthcare Operations Management. He is using the game again this semester as part of his resident M.H.A. version of the class. The setting of the game is a walk-in physician clinic; the goal is to optimize the clinic’s operations to ensure patient satisfaction and maximize profits. Clark developed the game—called Time and Patient$—in collaboration with Chris Stubbs and Zac Zidik of Penn State’s Educational Gaming Commons office and Wendy Mahan, senior instructional designer in the College of Health and Human Development. The services of the Educational Gaming Commons office are available to any faculty member, staff member, or student who is interested in developing unique learning tools.
much as desired and then to write a reflection on the experience.
For the fun of It For players, the video game begins when the clinic opens its doors on Monday morning. Patients begin to trickle in. Some are seen by doctors or nurse practitioners right away; others sit patiently in the waiting room. As time passes, the clinic becomes busier and busier. Patients with simple problems are dealt with in a few minutes; those with complicated problems demand more attention. A few patients grow weary of waiting, so they get up and leave. Two nurses take breaks. A new doctor begins her shift. By closing time, the clinic has met its profit goal, but not its patient satisfaction goal. On the whole, at the beginning of the game the clinic is not performing well. The student’s challenge is to change that. The simulation, which covers 10 shifts over five “days,” is designed so that players can control all of the clinic’s operations, from the number of doctors and nurses on staff, to the time it takes for each patient to be seen. Players even can decide whether or not the waiting room will have an aquarium or coffee service, which might make waiting more pleasant. A “leader board” enables players to compare their performance with one another.
“Time and Patient$ allows students to apply the principles they learn in two areas in my course,” said Clark. “The first is general process analysis, which provides basic tools for evaluating and analyzing processes to identify problems and guide process-improvement efforts. The second is queuing theory, which provides a framework for understanding, evaluating, and managing the patient experience in the context of waiting in line.
“I got very wrapped up in the game,” said Meredith Mills, an online M.H.A. student living in Hershey, Pa. “I might have gotten a little overly competitive. I spent over five hours straight one day just perfecting my options, until I was the most profitable.”
According to Clark, the students’ assignment was to play the video game as
Another online M.H.A. student Kevin Lynch, of Falmouth, Mass., said the Yam-
Department of Health Policy and Administration
Okay, I concede to your victory. I cannot get Friday PM to be profitable. I am $148 off and I have taken away options and it effects the high volume days, which impacts my revenue and satisfaction at a greater extent. I fired the analyst since I got what I needed from it and it did get me a bit closer but still not in the green. I cannot lower the exam rooms or decrease any other amenities because again, the trade off is too high on higher volume days. My satisfaction scores are very high and, therefore, although you are making a higher profit, I’m poised for growth. (So, I still win.) Just kidding. Lynch’s response, directed at the whole class: Does anyone know a good audiologist? I can’t seem to hear Jeanine talking trash anymore! “Allowing the students to communicate with one another on Yammer while playing the simulation increased their enjoyment,” said Wendy Mahan, an instructional designer for the college. “The students shared strategies and questions, and occasionally some good-natured ribbing. In reading through their posts on Yammer, it was clear that they were having a good time.” Mills noted that the obsession she developed with the game was a reminder to her about why she avoids video games in general. “At least this was educational and also very applicable to real-life operational management situations,” she said.
“Real-World” Experience According to Chris Stubbs, a project manager for the Educational Gaming Commons office, part of the goal of Penn State’s M.H.A. program is to prepare students for a world in which they are going to have to think on their feet and respond to unexpected challenges.
“As we worked with Jonathan [Clark] and several other faculty members within the program, it was clear that they were looking for ways to push their students to think critically, but creatively, about the ways they approach and solve problems of practice,” he said. “Time and Patient$ is important because, as an educational tool, it allows students to engage in the kinds of active thinking and analysis that are so important to successful practitioners, and are at the core of the program itself.” Stubbs noted that video games are good learning tools because they let players experiment, fail, and try again in a safe environment. “Often in education we reward ‘the right answer’ and we penalize everything else,” he said. “But when you remove the penalties for being wrong, you encourage people to take what they’ve learned and experiment—to apply their learning in unique ways. That kind of synthesis and problem solving is what we ultimately want to see in our graduates because that will lead to success in a world that often does not simply have one right or wrong answer.” Since the video game is set up from the viewpoint of an operations manager, it provides opportunities for students to make multiple decisions and to see how their choices can have a far-reaching impact. “The simulations that we work on, in general, encourage active learning in an environment that represents the ‘real world,’” said Mahan. “The problems are relevant to the students’ current positions or to the positions they hope to obtain with their degree.” Clark noted that one of the main lessons his students learned from playing Time and Patient$ was how difficult and complex managing a clinic can be. “Players control the schedules of workers; they hire and fire people; and they even apply the principles of the psychology of waiting by changing the appearance and amenities available in the waiting room,” he said. “Then they observe the effects of those decisions on performance, and respond accordingly.”
Mills said she appreciated the flexibility the game provided. “I liked that you could pull different ‘levers’ to affect the patient outcome, and that I didn’t always know which levers would affect the patient in a positive or negative way.”
entire health system with other clinics, hospitals, and outpatient centers,” he said. “We may even include multiple competitor health systems, which would allow students to apply competitive analysis and marketing techniques.”
Next Steps
Stubbs added that another idea the team has discussed is the possibility of adding more social elements to the game; for example two classmates might run separate clinics in the same fictional place, competing for a finite supply of patients. But, as it stands, the game succeeds at challenging students to think through the various types of scenarios that occur in the real world.
Stubbs said that a challenge in developing the game was that it was set up around the freedom to choose. “The freedom to choose is a double-edged sword in games,” he said. “It can be wonderful and motivating for the player, but it is also very tricky to design. The more choices you offer the player, the more likely it is that someone will do something you would never have anticipated. It requires a lot of testing and balancing to make sure you create a game that is challenging for the player, but open enough to allow you to succeed using multiple different strategies.” Despite these and other challenges, Clark said the video game has provided his students with everything he had hoped it would and more; however, he sees some areas where the game can be expanded to include additional lessons. “Ultimately, the vision is to go beyond just one walk-in clinic to include an
“In today’s health care environment one of the biggest challenges is how to respond to the external downward pressure on revenues while maintaining employee engagement and patient satisfaction,” said Lynch. “We were given an opportunity to develop our strategic thinking skills and to ‘see’ the results we could expect based on our ability to request, analyze, and interpret data. But, most importantly, the game reinforced to me that we must approach health care delivery as a team and that each member of the staff, from the receptionist to the biller, brings value.” n
Master of Health Administration | hhd.psu.edu/hpa/mha
SOME FACULTY RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Dr. Deirdre McCaughey, Associate Professor, teaches HPA 556, Strategy Development in Health Services Organizations. Her research investigates the effect of organizational climate/culture & leadership on healthcare care provider well-being and the relationship of care provider well-being with optimizing patient outcomes. She has published her work in numerous academic journals and presents at such conferences as the American College of Healthcare Executives’ Annual Congress & the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual meeting
Dr. Jessica Mittler, Associate Professor, is a member of the MHA Committee. Dr. Mittler’s research focuses on how to improve the delivery of coordinated, patient-centered care by studying individual and organizational behaviors; namely, consumer engagement and organizational collaboration. She uses mixed-methods approaches to develop theoretical and practical insights of interest to a range of stakeholders. Her current work includes a study of lay health advisers’ engaged behaviors (i.e. use of quality information to make health decisions), and a study of the role of physician office culture in transformatting to a team-based, patient-centered medical home delivery model.
Dr. Naleef Fareed, Assistant Professor, teaches HPA 503, Organizational Behavior, and HPA 524, Management of Health Services Organizations. His research focuses on policy and management issues related to healthcare organizations, with a special concentration on the enhancement of value in healthcare delivered by such organizations. Most recently, his research explored the financial performance of hospitals after the recent recession and their implications for institutions that remain financially weak. The paper was published in Health Affairs and was presented at a briefing event at the National Press Club.
Dr. Dennis Scanlon was recently named the Director of the Center for Health Care and Policy Research. His research focuses on understanding the role of measurement, incentives, quality improvement and individual and organizational behavior change for improving important health care outcomes, including clinical quality, patient experience and economic efficiency. He is currently serving as the Principal Investigator for the evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality program.
Department of Health Policy and Administration
STUDENTS PLACE HIGHLY IN HEALTH ADMINISTRATION COMPETITION Penn State students in the master of health administration (MHA) program were selected as finalists (top five out of 37 teams) in the eighth annual University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) Health Administration Case Competition. Students Jared Stanger, Yamini Kalidindi and Keerthana Rajagopal, with Kevin Hawkins as alternate, participated in the competition, which was held Feb. 26-28. The UAB Health Administration Case Competition provides graduate students from health administration programs that are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation Healthcare Management Education an opportunity to put what they have learned into practice with a real-life, real-time case. Each year, student teams from around the country travel to Birmingham, Ala., to present their recommendations before a national team of judges. “This year’s case team, led by Jarred Stanger, reflected all of the attributes of what a team is all about,” said Rick Shurgalla, director of professional development in the Department of Health Policy and Administration, the home department of the MHA program, and the team’s academic adviser. “They didn’t always agree with one another, whether it be strategy or presentation styles, but they always respected each others’ viewpoints and, as a result, they prepared an incredible end product.” The competition this year focused on TeleCaring, Capital Caring’s proactive, outbound, phone-based service to provide additional daily support and symptom management to hospice patients and their families.
Members of the 2014 UAB Case Competition Team -Jared Stanger, Keerthana Rajagopal, Kevin Hawkins (alternate), and Yamini Kalidindi. “Participating in this type of competition is important for our MHA students because it gives them the opportunity to step into the shoes of senior executives and develop and communicate a strategic idea for moving an organization forward,” said Jonathan Clark, assistant professor of health policy and administration and executive director of the MHA program. “In effect, it gives them the opportunity to play the role for which our program is designed to prepare them. To be able to do that in a setting in which they compete with students from other programs and receive feedback from leading health care executives is a rich experience that gives them a sense of their progress and development as health care leaders.”
MAYERS LECTURE FOCUSED ON ‘LEADERSHIP, COLLABORATION AND CHANGE IN HEALTH CARE’ Dr. James K. Stoller, head of Cleveland Clinic Respiratory Therapy, gave the 17th annual Stanley P. Mayers Endowed Lecture April 9 in the Nittany Lion Inn Boardroom on the Penn State University Park campus. The lecture, titled “Leadership, Collaboration and Change in Health Care,” was sponsored by Penn State’s Department of Health Policy and Administration and Mount Nittany Medical Center. Stoller is a noted pulmonary/critical care physician and chairman of the Education Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. In addition, he is a member of the Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, where he also served previously as the vice chairman of medicine and as executive director of physician leadership development. He holds the Jean Wall Bennett Professorship of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University and the Samson Global Leadership Academy Endowed Chair. He also has a secondary appointment as a professor of organizational behavior in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Stoller’s current clinical research interests focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and especially alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and on strategies of care delivery, espe-
cially regarding respiratory therapy. He earned a medical degree at the Yale University School of Medicine in 1979 and went on to complete an internship and residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Stoller has been honored with numerous awards including the 27th Egan Lecturer award and the Forrest Bird M.D. Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award, and he was named a Fellow and Honorary Lifetime Member of the American Association for Respiratory Care. He is also a recipient of the Dean’s Academic Achievement Award from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and he received the Best Morning Report Teaching Attending award from The Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s Division of Medicine. Stoller has been continuously included in the Best Doctors in America list and in America’s Top Doctors.
Master of Health Administration | hhd.psu.edu/hpa/mha
Department of Health Policy and Administration The Pennsylvania State University 118 Keller Building University Park, PA 16802
2014 MHA CALENDAR
August 29th MHA Summer Residency Presentation Competition, Preliminary Rounds
August 30th UPMC Fellowship Presentation
September 5th MHA Board of Visitor’s meeting and MHA Summer Residency Presentation Competition, Finals September 16-18th Fall Career Days
September 19th MHA Leadership Grand Rounds, Session 1
October 3rd MHA Leadership Grand Rounds, Session 2
October 17th Networking Reception – Mentors, Alumni, and other external partners
October 18th Professional Development Day
October 31st MHA Leadership Grand Rounds, Session 3
November 14th MHA Leadership Grand Rounds, Session 4
December 15-19th eMHA Capstone Presentations
December 20th Commencement - Inaugural eMHA Class
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