News & Events
Health Care Management Student Places First in Prestigious National Essay Competition - Again!
Approximately 41 million people in the United States were not insured in 2001, and these numbers are expected to become larger in 2003. Addressing the problem of the uninsured was the subject of an essay written by Beth Floyd, a senior in health care management in the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration. The essay recently won first place in the prestigious American College of Healthcare Executives’ Hill-Rom Management Essay Competition.
The essay, entered in the undergraduate division, was titled, “Healthcare Reform Through Rationing.” For her work, Beth receives a $3,000 cash award and will present her essay at the ACHE Congress in Chicago on March 19th. Moreover, her essay will be published later this year in the Journal of Health Care Management.
“Declining employer-sponsored coverage, the high cost of private insurance, and declining state budgets are the three main reasons so many people are uninsured,” Beth said. Her essay focuses on the Oregon Health Plan's method of rationing health services. "Such rationing," according to Beth, "extends the number of low-income people who are able to obtain health coverage from Medicaid." Medicaid is a federal/state health program for the poor that pays for a broad range of services.
The essay was written for her Survey of Issues in Health Care Management class, taught by Dr. Eric Williams, Assistant Professor of Health Care Management. “I knew the paper was on an important issue, was well written, and had the potential to be a winner,” said Williams. Dr. Savage, the coordinator for the HCM Program, added, “It’s a wonderful testament to the quality of the students attending The University of Alabama, and an honor for the Health Care Management Program to have Beth win first place, following up with the success we have had for the past three years.”
Dr. Williams and Dr. Savage, the Student Chapter Faculty Advisor, reviewed many essays before submitting Beth’s to the ACHE. This is not the first time that the HCM Program has selected a winner. In 2000 and 2001, Julie Robinson and Kelly Watson, respectively, were the second place winners of the undergraduate division in the competition. And last year, Greer Gray, was the third place winner.
The intent of the essay competition is to stimulate thought and demonstrate the ability of future health care executives to identify and describe important issues and developments in their chosen profession. In her essay, Beth offered the following recommendation for improving access to health insurance. “By streamlining the enrollment process, simplifying eligibility rules, and expanding outreach,” she states, “more of these uninsured children should gain health care coverage.”
Health Care Management Program Launches New Online Alumni Survey.
This annual survey of alumni helps maintain the program’s certification by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration. Some of the questions are ones that the AUPHA requires us to gather, including information about demographics, salary, and job placement history. Other questions pertain directly to improving the content and structure of the program. It should take you between ten to fifteen minutes to complete the survey. Click here to take the survey.
Note: If your operating system is Windows XP, you may have difficulty accessing the secure website using MS Internet Explorer. The working solutions include using an alternative browser such as Netscape, not using a secure setting with MS Internet Explorer, or temporarily turning off the secure setting and refreshing the page with MS Internet Explorer (this latter work around is for experienced users only).