From Price staff reports
For the second consecutive year, a team of Master of Health Administration students from the USC Price School of Public Policy won the College Bowl case challenge, presented by the Health Care Executives of Southern California (HCE).
The College Bowl is a regional competition organized annually by the HCE, the southern California chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives, a professional association of more than 40,000 executives in the health industry. This year, the event was held on the campus of California State University, Northridge, in April.
“This is a tremendous achievement for our students, and it truly reflects the high academic quality of our MHA program,” said Professor Mike Nichol, director of graduate programs in health at USC Price. “Our students once again have shown the ability to take their knowledge from the classroom and turn them into innovative approaches that can help advance the healthcare field.”
USC Price MHA students Anugeet Aujla, Michael Jones and Erik Manthei took first place over teams from host Cal State Northridge (which finished second), Cal State Los Angeles (third), UCLA, Loma Linda University, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State San Bernardino. The USC Price students were advised by Aaron Margulis, MHA ’13.
Each team was given two weeks to prepare a presentation on a case that involved designing a strategic and financial plan for the development of a health facility. A panel of experienced healthcare administrators served as judges.
According to Jones, the “project provided us with an opportunity to imagine a medical center that is equally innovative in its organizational structure, use of technology and reimbursement methodology. We carefully selected the ideal physician groups from the area, as well as, post-acute and acute care operators to provide the full continuum of services in an Accountable Care Organization.”
He added, “We identified technology partners who could contribute to the design and finance the construction of MLC as a showcase of 21st century healthcare technology. Finally, we decided that our hospital would operate as a model of payment reform, employing a variety of value-based contracts to encourage a population health orientation.”