In the spring, Edward A. Rosasco wrote an article entitled, “In a Few Short Years, It Will All Change.” The “it” he was referring to was the health care industry, and with regard to the article, he now says, “It is probably more relevant today than when I wrote it.” And he should know. Rosasco is the Director of the Health Administration & Policy Program at the University of Miami, a graduate program responsible for helping to equip health care professionals to tackle those changes.

Established in 1979, the Program currently ranks in the top 20 graduate health administration programs in the United States, and emphasizes the development of business, technical, administrative, and leadership skills as they apply to the health care trade. Rosasco was appointed to the position of Program Director in 2001 following decades of experience in the industry. In describing the necessity for the Program, he said, “Hospital executives in recent years have verbalized concern for adequate leadership,” he said. “We’re directly involved in educating these practitioners—they’re not new students—and we want to provide them with the necessary skills to be successfrul in an ever-increasingly difficult environment.”

Rosasco talked about some of the adjustments he foresees happening to the Program in the near future: “We are changing to meet new accreditation requirements,” he said, “and we are adapting the Program where we have the flexibility to do so. We also like to be sensitive to the marketplace, to those who put students into our Program.”

In describing the Program, Rosasco said, “We have a 16-course curriculum that begins in January, and we go year-round. We educate working health professionals, so we hold classes one weekend a month, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, all day. This enables physicians to participate because they are generally able to get coverage for one weekend. We usually have about 30 in a class, and the breakdown is typically one-third of the student body is physicians, one-third management—in all levels of an organization—and one-third nursing or pharmaceutical people.”

Rosasco teaches one course throughout the year, and also spends time promoting the Program outside the classroom. “I talk to executives in corporations and hospitals at least annually,” he said. “They often pay for their employees to participate in the Program, so they have a stakeholder interest. I’m out selling the Program to them, and also getting one-on-one responses.”

Rosasco said the Program has an Advisory Board of 20 executives from various hospitals and health care systems, as well as individuals involved with health care law. “We regularly use the health care industry to advise us,” he said. “They advise us with regard to relevant issues, like malpractice.”

Prior to joining the University of Miami, Rosasco was President and CEO at Mercy Hospital in Miami for 18 years. He came to Florida from Brooklyn, where he had been Executive Director of The Brooklyn Hospital for six years. “I enjoyed Brooklyn and wasn’t looking for a change,” he said, “but I was contacted by an executive search firm that presented to me the position of CEO at Mercy. It was what I had aspired to do, so I came and interviewed, and was fortunate to obtain it.”

Rosasco earned a degree in Public Accounting from Syracuse University, after which he joined the Air Force and became Captain, USAF Medical Services. He later earned an MBA from George Washington University, but said the time in the Air Force gave him an opportunity to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his career. “Health care management was just coming into its own,” he said. “That was in 1963, and there were only 17 graduate programs in the country at that time. Now there are more than 200. The industry has exploded during my career.”

He sees more changes coming, particularly in light of the approaching presidential election. “I think we’ll do something about the uninsured and the aging,” he commented. “Neither party can turn its back on that, and I think it will be a significant priority at the national and local levels.”

Despite the many changes Rosasco has seen and helped to implement, he is not ready to sit back and relax. “I’ve worked in the industry a long time and what I do makes me very satisfied at the end of the day. I am far from ready to spend 100 percent of my time fly fishing right now.”