NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Responding to marketplace demand for health care
leaders with advanced and specialized education, the Vanderbilt Owen
Graduate School of Management has announced a health care MBA program
that will have its students working in close collaboration with
professionals at the top-ranked Vanderbilt University Medical Center
and with some of the country‘s most innovative health care companies.
The inaugural class will begin taking classes in the new program
this fall. Participating students still will earn a traditional MBA
with a concentration in a discipline such as finance, management,
operations or marketing, but those electing to earn the Vanderbilt
Health Care MBA will commit to a rigorous curriculum requiring more
health care-specific courses than any other program of its kind in the
nation.
The program was designed in concert with a panel of health care
industry leaders who expressed the need for a different kind of
graduate business education. The Owen School responded with a unique
curriculum that will produce graduates ready to be productive in the
health care field from the first day.
“Health care executives told us that, because of the unusual and
complex nature of their industry, graduates who will have immediate
impact will need not only an MBA, but one that has exposed them to
considerably more about the way that industry operates,” said Owen
School Dean Jim Bradford. “The demand for employees who can really make
a difference is growing: Health care now represents 15 percent of our
nation‘s gross domestic product, and costs are rising unabated. One out
of 12 Americans works in the health care industry. Yet, the quality of
our health care system overall continues to decline.
“What
health care needs are leaders equipped with the knowledge, skills and
resources to handle the challenges facing the industry — those with a
solid foundation in business basics but with a comprehensive
understanding of how the health care system works. That‘s what the
experts told us, and that‘s what we‘ve designed.”
Bradford said that Vanderbilt is uniquely positioned to provide a
solid health care business education. “Very few universities can claim
a nationally ranked business school, a top academic medical center and
a large and growing concentration of such a wide range of health care
companies like that found in Nashville,” he said.
Vanderbilt Health Care MBA students will embark on a structured
curriculum of health care management courses taught by the Owen
School‘s exceptional faculty and instructors drawn from the health care
industry. The faculty will instruct students in the strategic,
economic, ethical and operational aspects of the industry in which they
will work. The curriculum is designed to permit students to choose
elective courses from an array of top Vanderbilt programs, to tailor
the degree to the student‘s field interest and to prepare him or her
for a career in health services, medical devices, biotech, consulting,
pharmaceuticals or managed care.
From the first semester, they will be immersed in the day-to-day
realities of health care through a combination of real-world clinical
experiences and strategic projects with health care organizations. To
provide insight into the complexities and challenges of the health care
environment, they‘ll view the health care system from patient,
physician and management perspectives, with regular firsthand
experiences at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, an
international leader in health care services, education, research and
discoveries, and at Nashville-based health care companies — of which
there are more than 300.
“Nashville is a dynamic health care capital, home to organizations
that are world leaders in hospital management, outpatient services,
disease management, pharmaceutical services, academic medicine, medical
technology and health information technology,” said Harry Jacobson,
vice chancellor for health affairs at Vanderbilt and chairman of the
Nashville Health Care Council. Jacobson, who also teaches a health care
entrepreneurship course at the Owen School, was instrumental in the
creation of the Vanderbilt Health Care MBA program.
“Our intent was to design a program that would produce graduates
with the skills today‘s public and private health care providers need
most: cutting-edge management expertise and an in-depth understanding
of the complexities of the health care sector,” Jacobson added.
The Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University is
ranked as a top institution by Business Week, The Wall Street Journal,
U.S. News & World Report, Financial Times and Forbes. The
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is ranked No. 17 in the nation
by U.S. News and World Report, and the Vanderbilt University Medical
Center is consistently ranked among the top hospitals by the same
publication. For more news about Owen, visit www.owen.vanderbilt.edu.
Media contact: Susanne Hicks@vanderbilt.edu
Susanne.hicks@vanderbilt.edu