A graduate program at the Naveen Jindal School of Management educating leaders in healthcare administration has been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME), the accrediting body for such programs in the United States and Canada.

Dr. Keith Thurgood, a professor of practice in the Organizations, Strategy and International Management Area at the Jindal School and the program’s director, said that while CAHME works closely with the Jindal School’s accrediting agency — the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) —CAHME is an additional accreditation that is used to recognize quality standards and provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in the healthcare industry.

“What is unique about CAHME is that it is a competency-based assessment,” he said. “In other words, we tie our program and courselevel objectives and outcomes to 23 specific competencies that healthcare leaders need in order to make an immediate impact in the industry.”

The Jindal School has long had a goal of attaining this accreditation. UT Dallas is one of only four Texas Master of Science programs and two schools in the UT system with the designation. The process of accreditation was a long one. To begin with, the program must be part of a higher learning institution that has received regional accreditation; UT Dallas had already achieved this with its AACSB accreditation. Additionally, the program must have graduated a minimum of one class and demonstrated that the facilities, faculty and Jindal School leadership support the program’s vision, mission and goals, Thurgood said. The next step in the process is to apply for candidacy and be accepted as a candidate, both of which the Jindal School did in 2021.

“During the candidacy, or self-study year, we worked with our advisory committee, alumni, faculty and industry leaders to identify the key competencies our students would need,” Thurgood said. “Then, based on that information, we developed a unique competency model that connects our program vision, mission and objectives with course and student-level outcomes and specific competencies or skill sets that healthcare leaders need. We also gathered and cataloged supporting data elements. Finally, based on our formal application at the end of the self-study year, we hosted the CAHME accreditation team at UTD.”

“In many ways,” he said, “We are at the end of the beginning of a process that’s designed to help our graduates be leaders… in the job market.”

Thurgood said that going through the accreditation process helped the program raise the level of performance and expectations for its students.

“The competency model provides students the opportunity to develop ‘real’ skills needed to succeed, drive transformational change and sustain operational excellence,” he said. “It means that we are focused on continuous improvement, and, perhaps most importantly, it has allowed us to refocus our efforts on a student-centric program that delivers results.”

Thurgood is proud that this designation recognizes the program as one of the elite in healthcare in the nation but also recognizes the important work ahead.