College students with a level from the intercollege program may have the distinctive potential to successfully lead their organizations and navigate them via the complicated institutional buildings and insurance policies of the healthcare sector, and by doing so, devise options to considered one of society’s most urgent challenges: the equitable promotion of well being in a resource-constrained atmosphere.
“The entrepreneurship and well being area has been very disruptive, in an excellent and thrilling means,” Georgette Chapman Phillips, the Kevin L. and Lisa A. Clayton Dean of the College of Business, mentioned. “The well being sector is big. With IBH we are able to present Lehigh college students with the chance to entry a level that sits on the intersection of enterprise and well being in all of its types.”
College of Health Dean Beth Dolan mentioned, “The well being sector contains greater than the normal roles of medical professionals like docs and nurses. College students who wish to enhance human well being throughout sectors can profit from enterprise coaching. A group well being chief, for instance, wants a enterprise background mixed with a information of the well being trade to run an efficient nonprofit group. The identical applies to somebody who needs to be entrepreneurial and implement options to more and more difficult issues equivalent to eldercare.”
Built-in Enterprise and Well being Diploma: A New Pupil Path
Presently, college students within the School of Enterprise could full any of 10 minors within the School of Well being, however the brand new IBH intercollege program will provide rather more in-depth coaching in well being coverage and well being economics than is feasible by combining a Bachelor of Science in enterprise and economics with a School of Well being minor. Likewise, college students within the School of Well being can, and do, declare a Twin Diploma program or a minor within the School of Enterprise. The brand new Built-in Enterprise and Well being program will provide them extra strong grounding within the enterprise instruments wanted to unravel complicated well being challenges in society.
Carson Snyder ’23 acknowledged this want earlier than the brand new program was in place. With a significant in inhabitants well being and minors in entrepreneurship and mass communications, Snyder, working together with her advisor, was capable of create her personal model of an interdisciplinary diploma that can now be simpler to outline at Lehigh transferring ahead.
“My curiosity in healthcare has been with me all my life,” Snyder mentioned. “However I wished to have the ability to create a view of the trade from many alternative views and thru many alternative lenses.
Three Lehigh school members have been instrumental within the design of classroom and experiential studying parts of this IBH program: Chad Meyerhoefer (professor and Economics Division chair, School of Enterprise), Michael Gusmano (professor and affiliate dean for educational applications, School of Well being), and Fathima Wakeel (affiliate professor, School of Well being). As a part of the IBH diploma, college students will be taught in regards to the social determinants of well being (political, environmental, social and so on.) and may have an understanding of how the healthcare system truly works. College students additionally will acquire literacy in biostatistics to allow them to learn and perceive the importance of analysis.
“We’re searching for college students who wish to higher perceive why the U.S. healthcare system struggles to supply high quality care in an economical method, and the way well being outcomes rely as a lot on international elements as they do on the native atmosphere,” Meyerhoefer mentioned. “Our college students will be taught not simply the right way to determine essentially the most urgent areas of the healthcare system in want of reform, however develop actionable options to enhance inhabitants well being.”
Gusmano mentioned, “This IBH program is not going to solely entice college students looking for specialised enterprise coaching within the area of well being, it would provide them the coaching required to advertise group well being and well being fairness, which is vital for leaders within the well being sector.
Snyder mentioned the intercollegiate mixture of communications, advertising and marketing, technique and well being allowed her to safe a monetary position at Johnson & Johnson, a number one firm within the healthcare area, regardless of not having a pure enterprise diploma. As an affiliate deal desk analyst, she evaluates contract pricing for healthcare methods throughout the nation.
“Gaining an understanding of the non-public facet of the healthcare trade now,” Snyder mentioned, “will put me able to have a future influence on the general public well being area.”
Fall 2024 Applicant Path for Enrollment in Fall 2025
“I’m excited this new IBH program will likely be accessible to chose first-year college students for a Fall 2025 begin,” mentioned Terry-Ann Jones, deputy provost for undergraduate schooling.
As with different inter-college interdisciplinary applications at Lehigh (Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE); Computer Science and Business (CSB); Integrated Degree in Engineering, Arts and Sciences (IDEAS)), candidates will be capable of select a backup alternative of faculty for admission consideration if not accepted into IBH. Jones additionally shared that the IBH intercollege program will incorporate an built-in seminar accessible to first -year college students to assist them think about the a number of connections and profession paths accessible to pursue.
The senior yr built-in capstone expertise will present college students a hands-on alternative to attach the enterprise points of healthcare with society’s dedication to selling the well being of its members via each authorities and community-based initiatives.
The brand new IBH inter-college interdisciplinary program will enable college students to acquire a level that can put together them to reach an more and more complicated well being and healthcare atmosphere.
“Our highest and greatest objective is to graduate college students with a information set that enables them to use vital evaluation to world issues, together with these within the sphere of well being,” Jones mentioned.
Story by Amy Bilello
