I welcome your thoughts and responses to Julie's very provocative questions in her article.  I too would like to add my own response, which follows. This response is a reflection of my own experience as a relative newcomer to the Section, combined with a couple of recent experiences.

I recently had the opportunity to coordinate and teach a public health one-week review course at the University of Minnesota, aimed primarily at students who were considering taking the first-ever public health credentialing exam.  Five faculty members, one from each of the core areas, spent a morning reviewing one of the five core areas of public health:  

• Biostatistics;
• Environmental Health Sciences;
• Epidemiology;
• Health Policy and Management; and 
• Social and Behavioral Sciences.

I was responsible for health policy and management, and had a morning to review the content from the health management and policy core course.  It seemed logical to use the 10 core competencies to guide the structure of the course.  Those competencies include:

1.       Identify the main components and issues of the organization, financing and delivery of health services and public health systems in the United States.
2.       Describe the legal and ethical bases for public health and health services.
3.       Explain methods of ensuring community health safety and preparedness.
4.       Discuss the policy process for improving the health status of the population.
5.       Apply the principles of program planning, development, budgeting, management and evaluation in organizational and community initiatives.
6.       Apply the principles of strategic planning and marketing to public health.
7.       Apply quality and performance improvement concepts to address organizational performance issues.
8.       Apply systems thinking to resolve organizational problems.
9.       Communicate health policy and management issues using appropriate channels and technologies.
10.     Demonstrate leadership skills for building partnerships.

Preparing for the course was an incredible challenge for a number of reasons, not the least being the amount of real information behind each one of these competencies.  After preparing for the course I started asking myself the relevance these competencies have to the Health Administration Section of APHA.  I also wondered what role the HA Section has in relation to each of the competencies. 

• What is our Section’s role in assuring the public health work force is kept updated on the financing and delivery of health services in the public health system of this country?
• What is our Section’s responsibly in challenging or supporting the legal and ethical bases for public health and health services? 
• How are we as a Section contributing to the identification of methods that ensure community health safety and preparedness?
• Are we as a Section contributing to the policies that improve the health status of the population? 
• What is our role in using the principles of program planning, development, budgeting, management and evaluation and encouraging their use in organizational and community initiatives? 
• Are we promoting the principles of strategic planning and marketing in public health? 
• To what extent does our Section apply and promote quality and performance improvement concepts to address organizational performance issues? 
• Are we encouraging systems thinking to identify and resolve organizational problems? 
• Do we communicate health policy and management issues using appropriate channels and technologies? 
• And, maybe most importantly ,are we demonstrating and modeling leadership skills for building partnerships? 

These competencies were created to define what a student graduating from an accredited school of public health would be capable of upon graduation.  In that spirit, these competencies define the core work of health management and policy.  To what extent should the future direction of the Health Administration Section mirror and compliment these competencies? 

Almost five years ago the Health Administration Section underwent a strategic planning process.  Out of that process came some important goals for the Section:
 

• Goal I  Increase member engagement and expand membership, with special focus on diversity of age, ethnicity and geography.
  • Why?  Because engaged members contribute multiple perspectives, and provide us with greater opportunity to find innovative solutions to complex challenges in health administration.

• Goal II Improve health administration practice through education, research, networking and mentoring
  • Why?  Because we don’t quit learning when we get out of school.  Some of the best learning we do is on-the-job and from others.  Identifying lessons learned and sharing them is an important aspect of belonging to a professional association.

• Goal III Influence internal and external policies that promote best practices in health administration
  • Why?  Because best practices allow health administrators to be more efficient and effective.  However, best practices are always changing; a best practice today may not be a best practice in a new culture, or a new environment.  Creating opportunities for dialogue about existing practices and new practices is essential for the growth of the profession.
• Goal IV strengthen the HA Section ability to meet our goals and contribute to APHA’s overall goals
  • Why?  Because infrastructure is essential to getting things done.  We as a Section need people – committed individuals willing to give their time.  We also need enough structure (roles, responsibilities, goals etc.) to allow volunteers to take on tasks and complete them.

The goals set for the Health Administration Section are still relevant today.  However, there is room for discussion about how we meet those goals.  At this year's Annual Meeting there will be plenty of opportunity for our members who would like to share their opinion to do so.  In the next newsletter you will find a list of opportunities for sharing your perspective.

In the meantime, you may also submit a comment regarding articles in this newsletter to be included in the next newsletter.  To do so, please include your comments, your name and contact information and submit it to Tricia Todd at todd0002@umn.edu by August 1, 2008.