Students place second in NAHSE Case Competition

NAHSE teamFour Masters in Health Administration students finished in second place at this year’s NAHSE Case Competition in New Orleans, LA. This marks the third time in four years that the program’s team has placed second at the competition.

The team was comprised of Anton Johnson, Chris Kvale, Philip Weiss and Karan Rai.  Alum and former Case Competition team member, Brandon Buchanan, MHA ’14 coached the team and MHA program director, Julie Robbins served as faculty advisor.

Ohio State students beat out 23 teams from around the country and were edged out only by a very strong team from the University of Michigan. The competition consisted of three rounds beginning with 25 teams and narrowing down to 10 and finally 5. The teams were judged by senior health system leaders from around the country.

“Being able to present in the final round was definitely the best part of the experience,” said the students. “The presentation was the culmination of our hard work and the conference took it extremely seriously. There were cameras, pre-and-post interviews and we even had to stay off social media the morning of our presentation. It was great to see how many of our student colleagues attended our presentation. Being told by student colleagues after the presentation that we did a great job was incredibly fulfilling.”

Each team had only three weeks to prepare for the complex case in which they were asked to make recommendations for Kaiser Permanente Georgia strategy for improving financial position and services to members in the Atlanta market. Our students recommended strategies for improving member access to services, enhancing care coordination for the highest utilizers and incentivizing in-network utilization.

“Their formal presentation was solid and their performance in the Q & A reflected the depth of their knowledge and facility with the material,” said Robbins.  “I am really proud of the team and their performance.  They were very committed and organized right from the start.  They worked hard and it paid off.”

The team was fortunate to have support and encouragement of NAHSE Case Competition committee members Tamara Austin, MHA ’04, recipient of the 2015 Everett V. Fox Legend Award as well as Jessica Jolly, MHA ’13 and Isaac Aziramubera, MHA ’14, both previous Case Competition finalists.

In addition to finishing in second place in the competition, Ohio State also received the ‘school spirit‘ award for their active social media support during the event.