The hottest new advanced degree in healthcare, beyond medical school, focuses on a game changer for the nation’s healthcare delivery system: population health.
Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), home of the nation’s only School of Population Health, received approval March 5 to become the only institution of higher learning in the United States to offer a new graduate-level degree program: Master of Science in Population Health (MS-PopH). The program is accepting applications for this fall.
“Population health is catching fire. It’s a raging inferno at the moment,” said David B. Nash, MD, MBA, founding dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health and the Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon professor of health policy at Thomas Jefferson University.
Nash, a board-certified internist, became involved in promoting quality improvement and lobbying for healthcare policy change in the 1980s. He joined the university in 1990 as a faculty member; the former university president asked him to build the School of Population Health for the campus, which opened in 2008 as the first U.S. academic institution focused on population health. Already, 25 students have completed the graduate certificate online program, which takes 12 to 20 months to complete. Its focus: to help current and emerging healthcare leaders understand the new population health paradigm. More than 100 students have completed the onsite Population Health Academy, a 40-hour continuing education program, providing an overview of basic concepts in population health.
“Healthcare inside a medical facility is only 15 percent of the story; 85 percent of healthcare happens outside the hospital,” noted Nash. “We have to reach outside the four walls of our hospitals to coordinate with community pharmacies, nursing homes, extended care facilities and the like, and link all of these care providers – from the hospital’s board of trustees to the folks delivering home infusion medication. It’s a big operational challenge. We’re going to have to become a well-oiled, organized, value-generating team.”
Kathy Jordan, president of Jordan Search Consultants, said the new degree program is well-timed.
“The healthcare landscape is shifting more dramatically right now than it has since its inception,” she said. “As an increasing number of healthcare organizations move to models of accountable care, the overall healthcare experience will transform. With an emphasis on proactive preventative care, evidence-based protocols, managed care teams, care coordination, and multidisciplinary teams, population health management will reward value in care, versus volume of patients seen. In some cases, this may require new types of training.”
The comprehensive MS-PopH online graduate degree program will help students develop competencies in five key public health areas – behavioral and social sciences, biostatistics, environmental health sciences, epidemiology and health policy. Students will also develop proficiency in the application of population health skills and principles, culminating in a Capstone project applying theory and lesson in real-world situations.
Already in place at Thomas Jefferson University: a doctoral degree program – PhD in Population Health Sciences –that started four years ago and has 14 students. The first two graduates will receive their degrees this month.
The doctoral degree is studied onsite, with the goal of preparing leaders with global vision to analyze the determinants of health. Doctoral candidates specialize in one of four areas: health policy, healthcare quality and safety, applied health economics/outcomes research and behavioral/health sciences.
“The PhD in Population Health Sciences isn’t intended for those new to the discipline,” noted Nash. “Preference is given to applicants who’ve completed a master’s degree or master’s level coursework in appropriate fields of study, such as public health, social work, health policy and behavioral sciences.”
The addition of the MS-PopH program came soon after Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, relocated from the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani College of Medicine and USF Health, where his transformative ideas took the Tampa medical school to unprecedented heights.
Klasko is in his first year as president of Thomas Jefferson University and president/CEO of the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital System, now the largest healthcare system in Philadelphia, Pa., the nation’s sixth largest city.
“We’re moving healthcare from a Blockbuster mentality to a Netflix mentality,” said Klasko, pointing out the university began offering population health “before anybody put population health in the same sentence.”
“At Thomas Jefferson University, we created a whole new mission and vision, where health is all we do,” he explained. “Our vision is to reimagine healthcare education discovery to create unparalleled value. Jobs will be needed in healthcare in 10 years that aren’t even yet imagined, and a good many will be in population health.”
Nash, who also serves as a government and private-sector consultant, chairs the Technical Advisory Group of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and is a board member of various healthcare organizations, including Humana.
“The great thing about Dr. Nash’s school, it’s not a Johnny-come-lately. He’s devoted his life to population health,” said Klasko. “In most universities, population health is part of another school and lacks the panache … that puts us at the forefront.”
For additional information on the Jefferson School of Population Health degrees – program content, admissions requirements, deadlines, and tuition and fees – visit http://www.jefferson.edu/university/population-health/degrees-programs/population-health/about.html.