Education is critical in the healthcare industry. As healthcare professionals, we constantly assimilate a tremendous amount of new technology and new ways of delivering health care. The patients we care for are increasingly diverse, while the policies that regulate our jobs are always changing. The current economic climate produced by managed care and cuts in federal healthcare funding makes the task even more challenging. From the smallest private practice to the largest healthcare system, healthcare professionals face ever tightening economic constraints. Each year, we try to deliver the best care we can with fewer resources.
Yet it is often difficult for established professionals to take time out from their daily responsibilities to learn about the best practices for meeting the industrys always evolving challenges. Many institutions urge administrators to pursue further education, some even require and pay for it. Yet schedules are so overloaded that healthcare professionals rarely can afford to leave the hospital or clinic and come to a college campus. Thats why Barry University decided to bring its masters program in health services administration to them. Established in 1994, the program on campus has always been friendly to working professionals, with classes scheduled on evenings and Saturdays. But in 2002, Barry took that convenience further when it began to offer the program at locations throughout the Baptist Hospital System in Miami. Barry currently offers its degree program at six healthcare institutions across South Florida including the Miami Childrens Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Mt. Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, the Tenet South Florida Healthcare System, and the Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood. The value of on-site training for clinical practice is undisputed. At Barrys School of Natural and Health Sciences, there is a long history of partnering with healthcare facilities in order to provide students with clinical skills. Those partnerships have met with great success. Over the past 20 years, approximately 76 percent of graduates in Barrys masters program in biomedical sciences have gained admission to allopathic, osteopathic, dental, or podiatric schools throughout the United States. The bachelors program in cardiovascular perfusion, which requires two semesters of classroom and laboratory instruction followed by a full year of clinical experience, prepares students for lucrative careers in this critical surgical specialty. Barrys masters in anesthesiology prepares registered nurses to serve as nurse anesthetists with 760 hours of classroom instruction and 3,500 hours of clinical instruction. Graduates had a 100 percent first-time passing rate on the National Certification Examination in 2003 and 100 percent employment as Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNA) throughout the United States. Barry also has a long history of accommodating working students. Barry University is one of only 15 institutions in the United States that offers a weekend program in occupational therapy, so working adults can prepare for careers. It also offers evening programs that lead to bachelors degrees in biology with specializations in either histotechnology or as a medical laboratory technician. In addition, allied health professional undergraduate degree programs are offered in medical technology and nuclear medicine technology. But if the benefits of flexible, on-site training for clinical practice are well-established, the need to be on location to train health service administrators and other industry leaders might seem less obvious, at least at first glance. Once Barry began to offer the health services administration program on-site, however, the benefits surpassed our expectations. More than simple convenience, the on-site program provides students with an entirely new perspective on the health care industry. The first course offered at Baptist facilities attracted students from the ranks of senior management, including the vice president of a hospital in the Keys. But the program also attracted other students, from people with little experience who had been recently employed in the Baptist system to established social workers, nurses, therapists, and physicians. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their sixties, the students formed a cohort and completed their course work together. Students from several different hospitals had the opportunity to really get to know each other. By meeting and working with people from other facilities, the students learn more than what is in the course syllabus. In the academic setting, administrators have a rare opportunity to hear how physicians and other clinical care providers think as they treat patients and clinicians learn what considerations business people must take into account when running a hospital. As they come to appreciate each others methods for solving problems, they develop a more cohesive approach to caring for patients. When education for health service administrators goes off campus and sets up on location, the students do more than develop their individual leadership skills. Together they build a network that connects healthcare professionals across South Florida and inspires solutions for some of the industrys most intractable problems.
