MHA program joins CAHME Mentorship Circle

SAN ANTONIO – The Master of Health Administration program has been selected to join the CAHME Mentorship Circle, an honor reserved for university programs that excel within the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education.

CAHME is the international accrediting body for healthcare management education programs. The UIW MHA program has been CAHME-accredited since 2012 and received its seven-year re-accreditation in 2018.

The CAHME Mentorship Circle was established to recognize programs that demonstrate a commitment to advance the quality of healthcare management education. Of the 115 CAHME-accredited programs, only 24 are members of the Mentorship Circle. UIW joins Baylor as only the second university in Texas with a graduate program in the CAHME Mentorship Circle.

MHA faculty submitted the program for consideration to join the CAHME Mentorship Circle and their application was accepted in early October 2020.

Joining the CAHME Mentorship Circle demonstrates the value of the UIW MHA program and allows faculty to give back to CAHME and its accredited programs, said MHA Director Dr. Chris Nesser.

“The CMC designation not only recognizes our commitment to excellence within our program, but also our willingness to help other young health administration programs seek accreditation and to enhance the broader field of healthcare management education,” Dr. Nesser said. “We are looking forward to sharing our best practices and supporting the continuous improvement in healthcare management education."

The UIW MHA program and its faculty will now serve as a mentor to other graduate healthcare administration programs seeking CAHME accreditation. In this role, the program will share best practices and also plans to host a seminar in the coming year to demonstrate how the UIW MHA program assesses student competencies and program outcomes.

This recognition comes at a time when Dr. Nesser says she has experienced an increase in collaboration among healthcare administration programs from different universities since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Long-term, we're all looking to build the next generation of healthcare workers across the country,” Dr. Nesser said of the common goal among healthcare education programs.

The UIW Master of Health Administration program was established in 2010 and seeks to prepare the highly skilled and dedicated healthcare management leaders needed to provide quality care to the communities they serve. Learn more about the MHA program.