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We have had a very exciting semester here at �԰�����. As always, we have two great new cohorts of students in the On Campus and Executive Programs. The faculty is enjoying getting to know them – we think they will live up to the great reputation that all of you have established for �԰�����.

Things are going very well with the Program. Our Second Year On Campus students are getting ready to go off on their residencies. Once again, Ms. Sharon Hubenak, Director of Recruitment and Residencies, did an amazing job in getting all of our On Campus students a residency placement. They have been engaged in a number of “real life” projects in their capstone and finance classes this semester. Once again, groups of 3-4 students participated in our internal case competition which required an analysis of the Boerne, TX market and the decision to build a new facility for a local health care system. The all-class project this year involved working with Methodist Healthcare Ministries as they open a new clinic on the southeast side of San Antonio. The study includes asset mapping, a community needs survey, examining the social determinants of health as well as researching nationwide best practices. The final deliverable includes recommendations for how they should organize their new clinic in a way to get out in front of the upstream needs of the community and provide a roadmap for how they should enter future markets.  

In addition to these projects, each group has its own consulting project with a partner organization.  These include:

• Business plan for a cranial neurosurgery service line for a suburban Houston hospital.
• Throughput analysis and recommendations for improvement for a hospital in Central Texas.
• Behavioral health needs assessment for a local hospital system.
• Creating a protocol for triage in the post-acute care space for a post-acute care physician group.
• Development of an urgent care expansion strategy for a children’s hospital.
• Development of a strategy for the expansion of the spine service line for a system in North Texas.

All of these projects were open-ended by design. Each project had a faculty adviser but the students worked directly with the organization. They all involved a presentation to senior leaders in the organization at their facilities. If you have an idea for a project for next year’s class, please let me know.  We’d love to have you involved with us!

We also have two great cohorts of Executive students working with us. It is always impressive to see how our Executive students manage to balance their time in the Program with their normal lives at work and at home.  Yet, the quality of their work continues to exceed our expectations. If you have identified any “up and coming” leaders in your organization who would benefit from our degree, please send them our way.

At the Program level, we are in the midst of our self-study year for our CAHME reaccreditation. We anticipate calling on many of you to help us when our site-visit team is on campus in the Fall of 2018.

So there are many exciting things happening here. I would love to talk further with you about these and all the other happenings. Thank you for your support of the Program: our alumni are a key component of what makes �԰����� special and is critical to our future success.

Edward J. Schumacher, Ph.D.
HCAD Professor and Chair