Little-known Army-Baylor partnership bears great fruit in healthcare education

For more than 65 years, a partnership between Baylor and the U.S. Army has educated thousands of Army officers and federal health officials. Students in the Army-Baylor Graduate Program in Health Administration take their first year of classes at Fort Sam Houston, then are assigned to work hands-on as residents at select hospitals across the country.

If you weren’t aware of the Army-Baylor program, you’re not alone. Befitting its hidden gem status, students and professors regularly find themselves explaining to people who they are and what they do. And once people learn about them, their students and their No. 7-ranked master’s of health administration (MHA) program — tied with Johns Hopkins in the U.S. News rankings — they come away impressed.

The program was started by the Army shortly after World War II, and the partnership with Baylor began just a few years later in 1951, making it one of the first 11 graduate hospital programs in the nation. Students in the two-year program are all commissioned Army officers or senior staff members in the Department of Defense or Veterans Health Administration; they graduate with either an MHA or a combined MHA/MBA, prepared to serve as the next generation of federal healthcare executives.

Recently, many of those students have been traveling the country to competitions and conventions where they’ve earned prestigious victories and awards. In April, a team of Army-Baylor students won first place at the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio International Business Plan Competition while a different team of students took second place at the Clarion National Case Competition.

The Army-Baylor program also earned national recognition this spring at the 2017 American College of Health Care Executives Congress in Chicago, earning awards for highest engagement of a graduate program and a second-place finish in the Richard J. Stull Essay Competition. Four faculty members were honored, as well, led by program director LTC Forest Kim, who received an Army Regent Award for Career Achievement.

Sic ’em, Army-Baylor!