Saint Louis University Students Michaila Dix, Moustapha Mbaye and Calvin Upton Place 2nd in NAHSE Student Case Competition
A team of Saint Louis University first-year and second-year Master of Health Administration and Master of Public Health students placed second at the 26th Annual Everett V. Fox Student Case Competition, hosted by the National Association of Health Services Executives (NAHSE).
Michaila Dix, Calvin Upton and Moustapha Mbaye competed in the case competition against 46 teams from similar programs across the nation.
The team chose to address maternal health outcomes in Maricopa County, Arizona, and focused on preeclampsia as the main complication they wanted to target to reduce the prevalence among minority communities.
The team’s strategy focused on a partnership with CommonSpirit Health, the parent health network for the case, in a patient-provider communication platform.
“Within maternal health, we wanted to make sure we developed new strategies for the organization while also highlighting what the organization has already done to close the gap in quality of care for high-risk patients,” Mbaye said.
In addition to a focus on the communication platform, the suite of strategies recommended by the team included offering Omron Smartwatches to track the mother's blood pressure and other metrics that were early warning signs for preeclampsia. The students also recommended leveraging community partnerships, such as doulas and grocery delivery services, to better serve pregnant women.
The NAHSE Case Competition provides an opportunity for students to apply skills they learn in the classroom and to identify and work through real-world issues impacting the ever-evolving healthcare environment while competing against students from other programs.
“The most exciting experience I had was hearing that we made it to even the semifinals. After some technical problems on Monday, to learn that our strategy/strategies were seen as strong enough to negate some presentation flaws, I felt rewarded for all the hard work the team had put in,” Upton said. “Feedback from faculty when we had tightened up our presentation so much to where they could not think of any other ways to 'stump' us on potential questions was exciting too.”
Students were given a unique case study and are charged with applying their creativity, knowledge and experience to analyze the diverse and real situations facing the healthcare organization featured in the case.
“Student case competitions such as NAHSE challenge our students to think critically and design innovative solutions to problems that include increasing access to care, improving population health outcomes, and addressing social barriers for traditionally underserved populations,” explains Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., who serves a faculty adviser and coach to the team. “It’s rewarding to see how thoughtful and creative the students are.”
Alumni and professors within the college that shared their experiences and knowledge, included Michael Rozier (co-adviser to the team), Steven Howard, Kathleen Gillespie, Echu Liu, Kristin Wilson, Marcea Walter and Rhonda Belue, as well as several members of the St. Louis Chapter of NAHSE.
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College for Public Health and Social Justice
The Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice is the only academic unit of its kind, studying social, environmental and physical influences that together determine the health and well-being of people and communities. It also is the only accredited school or college of public health among nearly 250 Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States.
Guided by a mission of social justice and focus on finding innovative and collaborative solutions for complex health problems, the College offers nationally recognized programs in public health, social work, health administration, applied behavior analysis, and criminology and criminal justice.