Xavier Grad Students Win National Case Competition
Apr 19, 2023
Three Xavier graduate students placed first in a national competition by proposing ideas to solve real-world issues in health care.
Cayden Owens, Brittany Schaulis and Steven Kunz — all first-year Master of Health Services Administration (MHSA) students at Xavier — took on students from 20 other premier programs from across the country and won the 12th annual First-Year Health Administration Case Competition, hosted by The Ohio State University on Friday.
Friday marked Xavier's first time winning the competition since its inception in 2011, earning the group a cash prize of $4,500. The accomplishment of finishing atop such a prestigious group of competitors made for a very gratifying experience, Schaulis said.
“The OSU case competition is no small venture,” said Schaulis. “We competed against 20 of the best programs in the country and came out ahead. It’s no doubt that Xavier has made a name for itself and continues to prove the competitiveness of our program. I’m proud to represent the Xavier name.”
The competition is designed to present students with important problems within the health care sector and challenge them to develop a solution to these issues. This year, non-profit health system Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) tasked teams with addressing surgical capacity issues.
The trio’s success demonstrates the ability of Xavier’s MHSA program to compete at a high level with other nationally ranked programs, said Owens, who appreciated the chance to address challenges faced by real patients and health care professionals.
“The opportunity to propose solutions to a real problem for an actual health care organization is an invaluable experience, especially when we believe it will make a real difference for the organization if implemented based on concrete market data we collected,” Owens said.
From left, Xavier teaching professor Dwight Ellingwood and Master of Health Services Administration students Steven Kunz, Brittany Schaulis and Cayden Owens pose with the students' first-place award at the First-Year Health Administration Case Competition, hosted by The Ohio State University on April 14.
The Musketeers won over the judges with their three-pronged plan, “Increasing Surgical Throughput at Yale New Haven Hospital: A Multifaceted Approach,” which involved:
- Strengthening the organization’s digital presence through enhanced search engine optimization to bring in more patients
- Using artificial intelligence to address surgery schedule inefficiencies, and
- A “Discharge by Noon” initiative to increase bed capacity for surgical patients
“The effort in research, preparation and practice over three weeks that Brittany, Steven and Cayden put into preparing and then delivering their strategic and operational strategies was truly exceptional,” said Dwight Ellingwood, a teaching professor in Xavier’s Department of Health Services Administration. “The Yale New Haven Health judges were very impressed with their bold and innovative approach to address the YNHH digital presence and the practical applicability of all three strategies.”
Looking ahead, the experience of competing against other Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) not only demonstrated the students' capabilities but also boded well for their futures
“The greatest takeaway from the competition was truly a sense of affirmation,” said Schaulis. “We proved to ourselves that we belong at Xavier, we are competitive among the best CAHME programs in the country, and we, as individuals, can succeed beyond the school setting.”