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New Seminar Series Brings Pressing Health Policy Issues into the Classroom
A series of 1.5 credit elective courses, offered by the Department of Health Policy and Management, introduces students to timely issues in the field and enables them to take more electives. The initiative includes courses taught by faculty in the Department as well as industry leaders.
Seminars consist of 21 hours of instruction over a period ranging from three days to 10 weeks. The course topics cover a wide variety of fields, expanding upon the required core curriculum, and enabling students to gain valuable experience with contemporary policy and management issues. Students learn from leading researchers and professionals who give them access to timely data and prepare them for launching careers in highly specialized fields.
Since the initiative was introduced in 2005, seminars have received high marks from students and faculty, earning recognition throughout the School and attracting potential future instructors from the field.
A sample of the seminars offered includes:
- "Leadership," taught by Sam Davis, president of Sam Davis & Associates;
- "Homelessness," taught by Bella Schanzer, MD, MPH, mental health director of the AIDS center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York;
- "Health Policy Research" taught by Michelle McEvoy Doty, PhD, associate director of research at the Commonwealth Fund; and
- "Quality of Healthcare" taught by Donna Lynne, DrPH, president of Colorado Region, Kaiser Permanente.
One example of a seminar from last Fall that received high praise, "Health Information Technology," taught by Kenneth R. Ong, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA, director of Medical Informatics at Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, examined the challenges and promise of information technology and management for the healthcare field. Students learned how IT contributes to quality care, financing, strategic organizational issues, and project management.
Narmadan Kumarasamy, a student in the class commented that "Dr. Ong's class offers a comprehensive overview of the major issues surrounding Health IT. Lectures by industry leaders offer students a chance to understand the practical implications of Health IT from the view of multiple stakeholders."
As part of the course, students were encouraged to enter the New York Chapter of the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society's annual Student Essay Contest. Several students from the fall 2006 Semester received recognition on the state and local level for their essays, including Narmadan Kumarasamy. He was the first place winner of the 4th Annual New York State HIMSS Student Essay Contest for his essay titled, "Health IT; A Quality Solution for the New Millennium?"
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