Overview

The Department of Health Management and Policy, and its research center the Center for Health Policy and Research, under the direction of head Dr. Keith Mueller, has 13 full-time faculty and 50 adjunct and secondary faculty who are dedicated to educating the future healthcare managers, researchers, public health leaders, and policy makers. Our faculty make significant contributions to the national healthcare services and policy research agenda. Faculty and students disseminate their research findings through extensive peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national, state, and local meetings. The Department’s mission is to improve health and health services by preparing future leaders for, and advancing knowledge in, health management, policy, and research. The Department is concerned with the management of health care organizations, formulation and implementation of health care policy, improving access to health care services, financing health care services, and evaluating the quality and outcomes of health care services.

A Health Management and Policy student can pursue a Master’s degree in Health Administration (MHA), a Master’s degree in Public Health (MPH) with an emphasis in policy, or a Ph.D. in Health Services Research and Policy. Graduate education in health management and policy prepares individuals for careers in management, policy analysis and implementation, and research that focuses on the design, administration, management, and evaluation of health policies, programs, and services that are provided in a variety of settings.

People

The Master of Health Administration program, the MPH in Health Policy, and the PhD in Health Services and Policy program provide access to high quality graduate research assistants for the Center, as well as multi-disciplinary faculty expertise (health economics, political science, sociology, organizational psychology, health administration). The College of Public Health (CPH) has three collective areas of excellence: Rural Health, Comparative Effectiveness Research, and Community Engagement. Research expertise in other departments of the college include community-based participatory research, biostatics as applied to clinical effectiveness research, epidemiology including use of claims data, and health and nutrition.

Offices

The Center for Health Policy and Research (CHPR), based in the University of Iowa College of Public Health in Iowa City, Iowa, coordinates the University’s interdisciplinary research on the organization, delivery, financing, and outcomes of health care. The CHPR, the Department of Health Management and Policy, and the College of Public Health maintain extensive research resources. The total research enterprise occupies space in ten buildings across the University of Iowa campus, the UI Research Park, and three off-campus locations, for a total of 176,000 square feet. These buildings share a common infrastructure for such services as Information Technology Support, Communications and Outreach support, and Central Administration. All investigators and other personnel at the University of Iowa have their own private offices on the second floor of the newly constructed College of Public Health building.

Computing

The general-purpose computing facilities available to the College of Public Health are extensive. In 2011, a central collegiate data center was completed within the newly constructed College of Public Health Building. This data center contains the capacity to support departmental and collegiate servers currently with room for expansion. The facility includes climate controlled redundant air cooling and humidity sensors, gigabit network bandwidth, enhanced electrical power (220v), power conditioning and backup (Uninterrupted Power Supplies), backup power via generator, and restricted access controls including two factor authentication with entry and exit logging. Within the College, the local area network infrastructure consists of a combination of Microsoft Windows 2008 Server, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, and Ubuntu Linux with over 90 terabyte of server storage space. Backups of file, web, database and application servers are run daily (business days) and preserved in a temperature stable media safe. Monthly backup tapes are transported offsite for disaster recovery. RAID technology is used on servers to allow for a more fault tolerant method of disk implementation to allow for less down time and easier recovery from disk failures.

Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Terminal Services servers are available to offsite and traveling faculty, staff, and students. Network security and protection are top priorities within the College, requiring password authentication to all network resources and in some cases, password and data encryption. Software firewalls and IP Security (IPsec) filtering have been installed to protect servers. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is incorporated into Internet-based web data and web mail. Anti-virus & spyware software have been implemented across the College to assist with data protection. Information Technology staff monitor event logs, including security audit logs, applications logs, and system logs when needed to identify errors on systems and maintain security. Event logs for sensitive systems are centrally collected (when requested) to offer a more robust log monitoring solution and meet more strict auditing regulations. The local area network is connected to the University of Iowa campus and Internet through the campus fiber optic network.