Department of Health Policy and Management caps off 18 months of education achievements

January 29, 2016

The Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the CAHME/Cerner Award for Excellence in Healthcare Management Systems Education.

Faculty and students from the Department of Health Policy and Management attend Commencement in 2015.

The award, co-presented by Cerner and the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME), is the first national award to acknowledge excellence in graduate healthcare management systems education with a focus on the development of managerial competency in using information for performance improvement.

At the Gillings School, the Department of Health Policy and Management oversees the MHA program. Program leaders are Bruce Fried, PhD, associate professor and director of the residential program, and Bill Gentry, MPA, lecturer and director of the executive program. With more than 175 enrolled students, the MHA represents the Gillings School’s largest degree program.

The CAHME/Cerner award ceremony will be held on Sunday, March 13, from noon–1:30pm at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The Department of Health Policy and Management will be well represented by students, alumni and faculty, including research professor and department chair Shoou-Yih (Daniel) Lee, PhD.

“We’re very proud to be the inaugural recipient of the Cerner-CAMHE award,” Lee said. “This award attests to our department’s commitment to and investment in providing the highest quality of education. As the award celebrates, our students are prepared to be skilled and innovative leaders in health care and will contribute to quality improvement through the use of information and technology.”

Dr. Daniel Lee

The announcement of the CAHME/Cerner award caps off an 18-month process of self-study and reaccreditation for the MHA program. In November 2015, CAHME reviewers visited the Gillings School and found the program fully compliant with 33 of CAHME’s 35 accreditation criteria, and partially compliant with the remaining two. (Read more about the accreditation process.) That high a review was achieved by only two other of the 85 CAHME-accredited MHA programs in the country last year.

The award includes a gift of scholarship funding for the MHA program to support the education of the next generation of influential healthcare leaders.

Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu