Since its inception, the program has attracted top students, many already working in the field, with others snapped up by employers after graduation. Starting with the incoming class, the program has stepped up its commitment to giving students hands-on experience in research and decision-making, both locally and globally.

 

The thinking behind the program redesign is a reflection of the swift changes in healthcare administration, said Miriam Weismann, faculty member at the College of Business and the new academic director of the program. The three big issues in the field, whether here or abroad are the same, Weismann said: infrastructure, health care delivery and reimbursement. “We are training health care professionals who can navigate those business problems,” she said.

 

A new collaboration with West Kendall Baptist Hospital will take the form of a thesis-level class in which students do real-world research on topics such as health care analytics, finance, risk management and health care delivery. For this capstone project, the hospital provides the problems, and students are expected to complete a comprehensive Health Policy Analysis and identify possible solutions.

 

Other curriculum additions focus on key initiatives, including a 120-hour residency program that incorporates Lean Six Sigma yellow belt and green belt certification. Lean Six Sigma centers on efficiencies in supply chain, quality assurance, business risk and other management processes. Companies often spend thousands of dollars enrolling employees in Lean Six Sigma certification classes, Weismann said, but “we offer it in our residency program so our students come out with valuable business tools recognized in the business community.”

 

The residency program, which is broken into three week-long sessions, includes pre-class boot camps on finance, accounting, leadership, communication, team building, health care innovation and health care analytics. An intensive writing course is part of the new curriculum as well. And, beginning this month, students will have the chance to earn an Advanced Certificate in Global Healthcare Administration based on a 10-day trip to China.

 

Meanwhile, the core MBA curriculum, with classes in accounting, finance, law, organizational behavior, management, marketing and other key disciplines, remains the same.

 

“The beauty of the core curriculum is that if you take the healthcare MBA, you would be qualified to go into any business environment,” Weismann said.

 

 

Weismann also noted that FIU’s program is one of a select number accredited by the Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). “The principal question the accreditors ask is ‘how are you preparing your students for the marketplace?’ That is another guiding light for the way we are designing our program,” she said. The program expects to welcome close to 90 students this academic year, twice as many as in its first year.

 

Weismann brings extensive experience in health care fraud and the regulatory environment to her new role. She is a former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, where she focused extensively on fraud and money laundering. She recently published Money Laundering: Legislation, Regulation, and Enforcement, the most recent of her books about money laundering and financial fraud. She is joining FIU accounting colleagues in research looking at how different models of physician reimbursement may correlate with patient outcomes.

Weismann joined FIU’s School of Accounting last fall as Clinical Professor of Law.

 

She will be accompanying the group of students headed to China in August that will be preparing for the advanced global certification for the first time.

 

“We are looking in the future to go to Dubai, possibly Russia and Eastern Europe. We have a lot of plans going forward,” she said. “We are doing things that are absolutely cutting edge in the field of health care management in this program.”