Trinity University HCAD Herald

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."  For Trinity HCAD, there's an additional reason why that phrase rings true.  While most programs celebrate graduation in May, our program's students graduate every December, and this year we were thrilled to welcome back the Class of 2017 to campus to mark this important milestone in their lives.  This includes our wonderful Executive program students - who completed their two-year coursework in the summer while working full-time in their respective health care organizations in locations throughout the Southwest - as well as our accomplished On-Campus program students who just completed their year-long administrative residencies at various health care organizations across a wide range of cities, markets, and states. The festivities began with the On-Campus Class of 2017's "First Reunion," in which students spent a Friday afternoon catching up with old friends (well, not that  old) and sharing fun sto

Our final Research Spotlight post of the year shines on work led by our own Brad Beauvais, published in the most recent issue of Journal of Health Care Finance .  Along with colleagues Jason Richter and Lawrence Fulton, Dr. Beauvais and his team set out to assess the impact of recently proliferated care delivery models - including patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs), accountable care organizations (ACOs), and increased utilization of hospitalists - on four profitability measures across hospitals. Examining hospital-level data from over 2,000 hospitals in the American Hospital Association's 2014 survey dataset, Beauvais and his colleagues (2016) found that PCMH development was positively associated with improvements across all four hospital profitability measures (operating margin, net patient revenue, net income, and return on assets), while hospitalist utilization was positively associated with improved operating margin and net patient revenue.  In contrast, hospitals' en

With the calendar year drawing to a close and the holidays fast approaching, we once again enjoy a number of annual traditions here at Trinity HCAD.  Those include some highlights full of joy and celebration, like First Reunion and Graduation, as well as some bittersweet moments such as the Holiday Party when we celebrate the end of the semester but have to say farewell to our second-year students who will soon scatter to begin their administrative residencies in different hospitals, cities, and markets. It's sweet to think about all that these students have accomplished in just more than a year during their time in the program, and we marvel at their incredible development and growth over that short period of time.  They have evolved from "drinking water out of a fire hose" when it comes to becoming familiar with the health care industry at the beginning of the program, to now being competent and confident young professionals who will make a meaningful difference in

It's the end of the semester, which means one thing: finals .  Here in the Trinity HCAD program, our students are in the midst of diligently preparing for final exams in some of their courses, but primarily, much of our coursework revolves around major projects that blend didactic information with applied experience, connecting the classroom to the real world.  One of our differentiating attributes that we are proud to use to our students' advantage is the fact that our student cohorts all progress through the same courses together, allowing faculty members to collaborate across courses for joint projects.  This leads to a more robust, challenging, and meaningful collection of projects that students engage in each semester: rather than dividing their efforts into four or five separate projects for each class, they are challenged to focus and go deeper on two projects covering multiple courses.  For example, the HCAD 5330 (Health Care Organization Theory & Management) and HC