By Mallorie Williams and Michael Dudeck

A small private university, South University is constantly evolving and tracking to assist our students to meet demands of yesterday and the ever-changing demands of tomorrow. South University continues to be discovered by the traditional college student, but South has long served the non-traditional student in supporting their desire to improve their lives and that of their families with highly respected professional programs.

South University offers all levels of degrees: Associate, Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate, and SU is Regionally Accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The South difference is easy to explain: small classes and personalized attention make South University a unique learning experience, offering all learning modalities, including online, on-campus, virtual, and the ability for our students to blend these modalities to meet their busy schedules while earning their degree.

Although South University has an administrative team to help students be successful, the charge into the community is led by a cooperative effort of the Community Outreach and Admissions Departments. These individuals work to host and attend every opportunity to educate our community about South University Programs and collaborate with students from initial meeting through graduation.

Once a student has enrolled with South University, the support and encouragement of Admissions and Outreach does not stop, as Student Services and Academic Support continue to serve the ever-changing needs of our students. South University champions our students’ efforts with an outstanding Academic Support Coordinator to tutor and counsel students with technical support, eBook support and the course-by-course tutors needed to be successful.

South offers our students a rolling admissions process with fresh new 10-week starts every 5 weeks to allow the student to begin or renew their academic goals when they’re ready. This allows a student to start sooner, and with five 10-week sessions per year, the student may complete up to 20 classes in one year and set a pace toward graduation much faster than traditional semester-based institutions.

Our undergraduate programs include Associate of Science in Allied Health and Associate of Science in Physical Therapy Assistant. The Physical Therapist Assistant graduates boast a 100% pass rate on their boards. Our Bachelor programs include the traditional Business, Criminal Justice, Psychology and Healthcare Management, along with the high demand of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Our nurses are found in every hospital in Palm Beach County and beyond. Our master degree programs are designed to be completed in 6 10-week terms (Master of Business Administration, Master of Healthcare Administration, Master of Criminal Justice, and our combination Master of Business Administration/Master of Healthcare Administration). With our Clinical Mental Health Counseling being a 2-year program.

The Master of Medical Science in Anesthesia Science and the Master of Science in Physician Assistant Program here at South University, West Palm Beach offer an exceptional, instructive journey in which the chief focus is to advance each cohort into becoming successful, innovative, skillful clinical leaders. We are so excited to announce that the inaugural class of the South University West Palm Beach MSPA program is set to graduate in March 2023! These students have paved the way for our future PA cohorts, and will undoubtedly make a positive impact to society and the community as newly certified Physician Assistants.

As fairly new programs, the cohorts are growing, and our reputation is becoming well known in the community. Our students represent a level of professionalism, adaptability, and grit that contest the long-established programs. We advocate to recruit diverse student cohorts and faculty that is reflective to the surrounding community and progressively advances these professions. This is done by understanding the immense importance of taking a holistic approach when reviewing candidates and therefore matriculating cohorts that are multiculturally, socio-economically, ethnically, and intellectually diverse.

The uniqueness of the Anesthesiologist Assistant Program, is the full simulation lab/mock operating room that has all of the equipment and supplies you would find in a real-world operating room. Our AA faculty sometimes joke that we could open someone up right here at the campus and perform a full-blown operation!

Our staff strive for customer service superiority, and the faculty work exceptionally hard to ensure from the moment the students walk into new student orientation, to the day they graduate, they will receive nothing short of an excellent experience here at the educational hidden gem, South University of West Palm Beach.

For more information about South University, our programs and enrollment process, call (561) 273-6500 today and ask for Admissions.

 



By Dr. Salvatore Barbera

Careers in healthcare administration continue to grow as the overall industry attempts to work through the post-pandemic transitional challenges. These challenges include severe labor issues that necessitate a closer look at staff shortages both today and for the immediate future. Options may be limited but identifying this issue as a priority is a must. Most healthcare organizations need to devote time and resources into the future training and academic preparation of staff, including those at the bedside. These front door initiatives are essential and remain a critical component of any successful intervention geared toward effective human resource management. At the same time, appropriate oversight must be provided to retain staff already employed. A “revolving door” situation will not be successful in the long or short term.

To manage this human resource opportunity and challenge efficiently, healthcare management needs to be given the proper tools and resources. Considering the current environment, raising prices is not an option to address this ongoing cost pressure. Value-based reimbursement will create more pressure on providers by highlighting the cost of care even more. Healthcare consumers are finding themselves with rising out-of-pocket exposure even as they have decent insurance, drawing more attention to the industry-wide cost of care growth.

Current mid- and executive-level management must be educated in current human resources management practices that will encourage and support success. Determining the resources available in the community and those offered through educational formats created and provided by local higher education institutions is essential. These institutions must have experts to challenge and educate current management teams; they provide contemporary and advanced approaches for excelling within our existing competitive and ever-changing environment.

The Health Administration Program within the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University has both the expertise and understanding needed and serves as an invaluable resource for the community. In addition to FAU’s undergraduate and graduate programs in health administration, we have the ability to work with teams and organizations as well as individuals to design needed educational support through corporate training and certificate programs. Our health administration degree programs are guided by cutting-edge curriculum routinely evaluated to ensure industry relevance and compatibility. Courses are taught by highly qualified and experienced faculty who consistently receive recognition from the healthcare field and our students. We offer an industry leading, highly regarded executive program attractive to working executives with its weekend and online class formats.

Healthcare is a dynamic industry with unlimited opportunities and currently experiencing intense volatility that will bring about unprecedented change. Stay relevant and count on the Health Administration Program at Florida Atlantic University to provide your learning needs with either a degree-focused format or a certificate program or with custom-developed trainings to upskill your teams and organizations.

Dr. Salvatore Barbera, Associate Program Director, Health Administration Programs, College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, can be reached at (561) 297-4444 or Sbarber2@fau.edu.

 



The New Department of Informatics and Health Data Science seeks to redefine how data can power patient care, education, research and outreach – and catalyze innovation.

By Josh Baxt

The phrase “big data” can have vastly different meanings. To fundamental discovery researchers, it could be the readout from whole genome sequencing. For clinicians, it could mean deidentified patient data from electronic health records. For telemedicine specialists, it could indicate aggregated information streams from remote devices. Population health researchers might say all of the above.

This diversity can be a blessing and a curse. Data offers great promise to help address some of the world’s most intractable health issues. Still, the medical and research communities are just beginning to figure out how to manage these data streams and translate them into coherent information.

To help overcome these issues, and elevate big data’s impact on education, research, outreach and patient care, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine recently launched the Department of Informatics and Health Data Science. The new department seeks to become a nexus, where new thinking, and collaborations between disparate interests, can align to achieve common goals.

“Our gift as a clinical institution is that we care for people,” said Azizi Seixas, Ph.D., interim chair of the department. “To improve how we provide that care, we must adopt a precision approach, but what does that even look like? Each individual is a constellation of different factors: their biology, DNA, behavior, psychology, environment – and we have to understand all of it. To truly provide personalized care, we must embrace a continuously learning health system.”

Reimagining How Information Is Acquired and Used

The department seeks to refine academic medicine and health care across five pillars: research, clinical care, education, private venture, and service and outreach.

  • In research, the department will integrate lab and clinical research findings, electronic health records and population health studies, ultimately translating that information into new therapies.
  • On the clinical side, the team will advance telemedicine, smart devices and other remote health applications.
  • In education, the department seeks to expand collaborations with life sciences and tech companies to build internship programs and develop a new generation of innovators who thrive on information.
  • Private venture governs how the Miller School interacts with the larger life sciences and tech communities to catalyze the thoughtful exchange of ideas and more rapidly advance therapeutic innovations.
  • Outreach is developing new collaborations with South Florida’s many communities, such as partnering with minority-serving institutions to help them advance their research.

“We want to generate a free exchange of intellectual capital, ideas and technologies,” said Dr. Seixas, “to dive into traditional informatics, while also elevating understudied areas, such as population health.”

Embracing a Wiser Health Care System

Dr. Seixas believes these and other approaches will help create a health care system that freely shares knowledge and experience and relies on data to provide the best possible clinical judgment.

This emerging system would better integrate current technologies, and share data throughout the ecosystem, as well as accelerating how new technologies are vetted and ultimately adopted. The primary goal is to leverage data to better understand biology, clinical care and communities.

Sharing the Intellectual Wealth

Dr. Seixas and colleagues believe the Miller School and the department are in an ideal position to accumulate new knowledge and share it in the community. This process has already begun, as the Miller School and Institute of Data Science and Computing have joined the National Institutes of Health’s AIM-AHEAD program, which supports efforts to build machine learning infrastructure at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions and tribal colleges.

“We currently have two pilot programs,” said Dr. Seixas, “with Florida Atlantic University, Florida Memorial University, Miami Dade College, and Caridad Health Center, the largest free clinic in Florida. We are building up their AI infrastructure to process and deidentify electronic medical records. It will give them more data for their own research, as well as attracting pharmaceutical companies and clinical trials.”

But the Miller School community extends far beyond South Florida. Miami is a gateway to the Caribbean, Central and South America, Africa and North America, and all these regions will be part of the equation.

“There’s already a free exchange of commerce and culture, and we’d like to share technology as well,” said Dr. Seixas. “Whatever we can build in South Florida, we can build anywhere in the world.”



As South Florida continues to climb out of the deep recession caused by the economic crash of 2008, more and more people are looking for ways to reinvent themselves and create a new career path that will give them the financial security to provide their families with a bright and stable future. While this creates a great opportunity for the rapidly growing healthcare fields, it does not come without its challenges.
 
According to a report developed by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, the number of healthcare jobs available will expand by three million positions over the next decade. In response to this growth, the demand for postsecondary education and training in healthcare will also continue to rise. By 2020, 94% of professional and technical occupations will require postsecondary accreditation, second only to STEM and education degrees. In other words, it will become more difficult for people to enter this workforce with the appropriate accreditation because of the heavy time commitment required to attain these degrees.
 
South Florida in particular, is seeing the shift, due to its dense and growing senior population. To be able to meet these needs, educational institutions will have to take a look at their current models and figure out ways to adjust to better serve the community and the industry. Specifically, learning institutions will need to start implementing flexible options like open enrollment, availability for morning and night classes, more degree start options and a defined track that allows students to know exactly when they will graduate.
 
Today, Dade Medical College (DMC) stands as one of the only educational institutions in the South Florida region that offers this type of flexibility and its students and the local healthcare industry have reaped the benefits.
 
“There is definitely something to be learned by just looking at the demographics of our student body,” says Ernesto Perez, Dade Medical College, president and CEO. “Right now, the majority of our students are choosing DMC because it allows them to manage their lives while working towards attaining something better. Similar to today’s healthcare workforce, a vast majority of our students are female with a medium age of 32, and many are also single moms.” Perez adds, “This alone signals that the needs of these students are going to be very different than those of a younger demographic, and as a result, the community is going to have to offer them different options to help them achieve these goals and help the industry fill the gap.”
 
The numbers show that the desire of the students and the talent in our community is there for us to cultivate. Last year alone, DMC boasted a retention rate of 91%, a job placement rate of 85%, and accredited over 825 students, making it one of the most successful healthcare education programs in the region. Additionally, DMC has been able to avoid turning away students at enrollment time due to lack of space. Through its rolling admissions policy, DMC motivates potential students to pursue their new careers as soon as possible while providing local area hospitals and doctors with the talent that they need on an ongoing basis.
 
As we move forward, these types of programs are going to be in greater demand. A growing Millennial generation that is fueled by instant gratification and short attention spans will begin to gravitate towards educational models that allow them to achieve their goals in a short amount of time. “While the core of our student body is still composed of non-traditional students, we are already starting to see an increase in enrollments from recent high school graduates and students in their early 20s,” says Perez. “This gives us confidence that DMC is on the right track to filling a void in the community and the healthcare profession.”


Over a decade ago, the Institute of Medicine pointed out that there is a need within the healthcare industry for transformational organizational changes to deliver safe, effective, efficient, patient-centered, timely and equitable healthcare. Organizations’ successful adaption to their new environment requires more individuals leading the change as transformational leaders. Transformational leaders are able to successfully change an organization’s culture and develop the system-wide alignment of its strategies to meet the demands of its environment.
 
Transformational leadership theory describes a leader’s ability to motivate a follower to accomplish more than what the follower planned to accomplish. Through transformational leadership’s four traits: (1) idealized influence, (2) inspirational motivation, (3) intellectual stimulation, and (4) individualized consideration, leaders inspire followers to accomplish more by concentrating on the follower’s values and helping the follower align these values with the values of the organization.
 
Leadership research supports the positive effect of transformational leadership on both organizational outcomes and individuals. At the macro level, researchers have demonstrated that transformational leadership has a positive influence on organizational citizenship behavior/performance and organizational culture. At the micro level, studies have reflected transformational leadership’s positive impact on an individual’s level of performance and satisfaction. In addition, researchers have found that transformational leadership develops an individual’s confidence to be creative, and critically analyze problems and solutions.
 
The required transformation of the health care industry calls for transformative leadership, yet few health care systems have demonstrated this leadership style. Successful leadership requires the ability to create and communicate an organization’s vision, and then to inspire, motivate, and empower others to achieve this vision. These goals are achieved through an individual’s development of the four traits of transformational leadership described above. Therefore, educational activities that focus on the development of transformational leadership traits can eventually lead to a more successful organization by fostering high levels of motivation among employees to achieve organizational goals. In addition to professional development activities, a supportive organizational culture is needed for individuals’ to develop transformational leadership traits.
 
Organizational culture is defined as the implicit norms, values, shared behavioral expectations, and assumptions that guide employees’ behaviors. Organizational culture is important because it influences employee perceptions, behaviors, and emotional responses to the workplace (i.e., organizational climate). The resulting organizational climate from a positive culture contributes to the success or failure of an organization. Although culture and climate are distinct, they are interrelated and crucial characteristics of organizations that influence employees’ attitudes regarding their work and organizational commitment. Researchers have noted that positive or constructive cultures are characterized by (1) organizational norms of achievement and motivation, (2) individualism and self-actualization, and (3) being humanistic and supportive. Positive cultures encourage interactions among group members and problem-solving processes that enable staff to achieve their high-order satisfaction needs. Attributes of a positive climate include supportive, risk-tasking, cohesiveness, and motivation to achieve.
 
In conclusion, a high performing healthcare entity requires a supportive organizational culture for the development of individuals’ transformational leadership traits. A supportive culture and a positive organizational climate will be one where there exists a strong need or desire to achieve transformational results, which will be demonstrated by the collective behaviors of the individuals.