Congratulations to Pitt Public Health’s team on their second place finish at the Robbins Case Competition at Baylor University. JOHN CORDIER (MHA/MBA), ZACHARY HAYES (MHA), and AMANDA WILKINS (MHA) were the students who competed in the event. HPM’s KEVIN BROOM (second from right, MHA and MHA/MBA program director) was there to cheer them on, and CHANDLER CAUFIELD (MHA/MBA) attended as an observer. She will be on the team representing us next year.
After an early flight to Houston on October 11, the students arrived at the Baylor campus where they attended an evening welcome reception. The following morning, they received the case study that dealt with the potential impact of value-based payment systems on outpatient oncology services. The team then spent the rest of the day reading/digesting the case; conducting a strategic analysis; determining their proposed solution; modeling the workload, quality, and financial impacts; developing their implementation plan; and then finalizing their presentation slides. They submitted the slides at 11 p.m. (with just a minute or so to spare) and then rested up before presenting their proposal to judges the following morning. It was a very intense turn-around (about 13 hours total). After the initial group stage, our students advanced to the final round by defeating teams from the University of Washington, Boston University, and the University of Toronto. In the final round, they beat Ohio State but fell in a very close vote to the team from Army-Baylor. As a result of their efforts, each of the three team members won $2,000 in prize money, and the MHA program also won a $2,000 prize.
10/16/2017