Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/61389
by Sharon Shinn illustrations by Lou Beach It appears that the need for well-trained health care pro- fessionals will only continue to grow. In the U.S. alone, health care accounts for approximate- ly 14 percent of the gross domestic product, a number that could jump to 17 percent by 2012, according to the Web site of the journal Health Affairs. This means that 14 percent of the people with MBA degrees should be work- ing in the field of health care. Obviously, that ratio doesn't hold. "I recently forecasted At the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State in Atlanta, courses examine topics such as health law, operations management in the health care field, U.S. health care systems, ethics, and health policies. "The policies class deals with broader issues in health care, all the way from how to get new prescriptions from Medicare to how does one justify new health care facilities," says Andrew Sumner, director, associate professor, and Joe Taylor Chair of the Institute of Health Administration at GSU. The Aston Business School at Aston University offers an required in the health care field and the number of students being produced for the field," says Vasanthakumar Bhat, who was program coordinator of the health systems management MBA at Pace University's Lubin School of Business, New York City, until that program went on temporary hiatus. "I realized there was a gap of about 250 for New York state alone." He expects that number to escalate. the number of people Healthy Programs While some health care programs—like the ones at Georgia State University and Boston University—have been in place more than 30 years, others have been crafted within the past decade or so as managed care and federal insurance programs have become more complicated. Others are being organized to open in the future. For instance, the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University,Waco, Texas, is starting a health care concentration this fall, seeing it as a natural outgrowth of the school's strengths in medical education and research. "Our goal is to become a ranked top-20 program within MSc and an MBA in public services management at its cam- pus in Birmingham, England. Courses cover issues of public service and offer collaborative sessions with social care col- leagues who discuss interactions among various agencies and professions. "Health care in this country has to operate with all the different agencies now. Education, health services, and social care are all fairly integrated," says Jill Schofield, senior lecturer and tutor in health care management at the school. B-schools use electives and special courses to reinforce the five years," says James Henderson, Ben Williams professor in economics and acting director of the Baylor program. "We felt if we were going to start such a program, we might as well strive to be among the best. Our short-term plan is to apply for provisional accreditation through the Accrediting Commission on Education for Health Services Administra- tion with a goal of full accreditation within a reasonable time frame." MBAs give students a solid foundation in business courses and use electives to teach students about the field. The sub- jects to be covered in the specialization are exceedingly broad. Whether formally accredited or not, most health care the capital to build biotech firms," says Alan Cohen, profes- sor of health policy and management, program director for the health care management program, and executive direc- tor of the Health Policy Institute at Boston. "And then we discuss the issues of intellectual property and testing for biotech products." Those courses about finance and venture capital can be extremely valuable in the health care field. "If you have a BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2004 cal aspects of health care. For instance, at Boston University's School of Management, a course discusses how hospitals and physicians make decisions to adopt new technology, how tech manufacturers research and develop new products, how they gain approval of new devices from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and how new technology is paid for by insurance companies and Medicaid/Medicare. A new course on biotechnology teaches students some of the science of the field, as well as its financing and regulatory systems. "We also cover venture capital markets and how to obtain health care message. Every semester at Baylor, all MBA stu- dents take a one-hour course called Focus Firm, in which they practice quantitative skills in analyzing a real company. In the second semester, instead of learning about the Focus Firm with other MBA students, the health care students will focus on a case study offered by the American College of Healthcare Executives. "The group has an annual meeting every year that revolves around a nationwide case competi- tion, and our students will focus on that case competition in their second semester," says Henderson. Several schools are starting to emphasize the more techni- 43