Department of Health Management and Informatics Receives Educational Excellence Award

HMI students

The Department of Health Management and Informatics (HMI) at the University of Missouri School of Medicine has received the Cerner Award for Excellence in Healthcare Management Systems Education. The award was presented during the 2018 Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) Awards Luncheon yesterday in Chicago.

“It is a privilege to have a CAHME-accredited master of health administration program situated within a school of medicine,” said Patrick Delafontaine, MD, Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean of the MU School of Medicine. “Not all MHA programs are housed within schools of medicine, so our structure here in Missouri is unique. I am proud of our department and congratulate our faculty and students on this well-deserved award.”

“Our master of health administration program has been accredited by CAHME and its predecessors for 50 years now,” said Sue Boren, PhD, associate professor and director of academic programs for the Department of Health Management and Informatics. “This award signifies our dedication to students and their success.”

CAHME recognized HMI for its dual degree or certificate in health informatics, its application of quality and process improvement methods, its peer-based learning, and its focus on lifelong leadership development, especially the integrated Six Sigma Green Belt certification.

“Students bring a wealth of information to the classroom,” said Eduardo Simoes, MD, chair of the Department of Health Management and Informatics. “Each one of those students are actually a faculty in a way because they bring so much from their professional lives. The peer-based learning, strategic curriculum, along with our faculty and their diverse backgrounds, enable our students to think critically about health care strategies to improve the public health and learn how to be a leader in this field.”

“Everything you learn in this program will teach you about how to make good decisions for a department or an organization,” said TJ Sweet, program alumnus and practice manager at MU Health Care’s Ellis Fischel Cancer Center. “This program will prepare you for any role so that you can be an asset to an organization right from the beginning.”

CAHME serves the public interest by advancing the quality of graduate health care management education the U.S. and Canada. CAHME is the only organization recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation to grant accreditation to individual academic programs offering a professional master’s degree in health care management education.