A team of Master of Health Administration students from the Bloustein School took first place in the Graduate Healthcare Management Case Study Challenge held on November 9, 2019 at Seton Hall University. Jointly organized by the Healthcare Planning and Marketing Society of New Jersey and Seton Hall, the competition provided health administration graduate students from the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania region the opportunity to present innovative solutions to a healthcare case.
“Case competitions are excellent learning opportunities for students. We are extremely pleased with the performance of the two Rutgers teams that participated,” said Ray Caprio, Ph.D., University Professor and Director of the Bloustein School Master of Health Administration. “We also appreciate our colleagues at Seton Hall and the Healthcare Planning and Marketing Society of New Jersey for organizing this wonderful event and making it a great success.”
In the competition, each team was asked to present innovative solutions to address a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) to improve community health. Each team was responsible for providing a strategic plan in response to the CHNA, provide a marketing plan, overall hospital branding strategies, and a grant proposal to improve the social determinants of health in the community.
“Rutgers has a strong MHA faculty with more than 100 years of combined experience leading healthcare organizations. We make sure that the students are not only mastering the foundation of health administration, but they are also getting strong practical training on how a healthcare organization is actually run,” said Stephen K. Jones, LFACHE, former President and CEO of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and an Executive in Residence at the Rutgers MHA Program. “We are committed to training the next generation of critical thinkers to promote health, health equity and a value-based healthcare system.”
The Rutgers MHA team, which competed against eight teams from the region, included Allison Mosier (1st year), Aakanksha Deoli (2nd year), Ellie Sorce (1st year) and Rakel Barrientos (1st year), and alternate Riddhi Desai (2nd year). Bloustein School assistant professor Soumitra Bhuyan, Ph.D., served as team adviser.
The team recommended several strategic approaches with the ultimate goal of improving access to care, noted Dr. Bhuyan. This included the addition of satellite clinics to expand access to care and the utilization of virtual access and use of patient navigators to improve care coordination. The team also proposed a multi-faceted intervention for asthma free housing for low-income minority households.
“In addition to offering solutions to the rebranding of the hospital to better align with its mission and vision, the Rutgers team sought to address the concerns of the community as well to improve the hospital’s financial position through the expansion of primary care base and better managing patients with chronic illness,” said Dr. Bhuyan.
For more information about the Rutgers Master of Health Administration at the Bloustein School, visit mha.rutgers.edu.
