Introduction to Health Care Management

Before retiring, Sharon B. Buchbinder, RN, PhD was Program Director for the MS in Healthcare Management Program and Dean of the Brown School of Business and Leadership at Stevenson University. Prior to that, she was professor and chair of the Department of Health Science at Towson University and president of the American Hospital Management Group Corporation, MASA Healthcare Co, a health care management education and health care delivery organization based in Owings Mills, Maryland. For more than four decades, Dr. Buchbinder has worked in many aspects of health care as a clinician, researcher, association executive, and academic. With a PhD in public health from the University of Illinois School of Public Health, she brings this blend of real-world experience and theoretical constructs to undergraduate and graduate face-to-face and online classrooms, where she is constantly reminded of how important good teaching really is. She is past chair of the Board of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) and coauthor of the Bugbee-Falk Award-winning Career Opportunities in Health Care Management: Perspectives from the Field. Dr. Buchbinder also co-authored Cases in Health Care Management (first and second editions).

Nancy H. Shanks, PhD, has extensive experience in the health care field. For 12 years, she worked as a health services researcher and health policy analyst and later served as the executive director of a grant-making, fund-raising foundation that was associated with a large multihospital system in Denver. During the last 20+ years, Dr. Shanks has been a health care administration educator at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she taught a variety of undergraduate courses in health services management, organization, research, human resources management, strategic management, and law, as well as overseeing senior internship experiences. She is currently an Emeritus Professor of Health Care Management, after serving as chair of the Department of Health Professions for seven years. Dr. Shanks’s research interests have focused on health policy issues, such as providing access to health care for the uninsured.

Bobbie J. Kite, PhD, MHS is currently the Academic Director of the Healthcare Management and Health Informatics programs and an Associate Professor at the University of Denver. Prior to the University of Denver, Dr. Kite was at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, where she served as a postdoctoral fellow for the National Library of Medicine and then as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the field of Biomedical Informatics and a consultant with The Ohio State University Health Plan. With an avid interest in teaching, community collaboration, and research, Dr. Kite has a passion for teaching and also maintains her research focused on population health. Before entering the field of biomedical informatics, Dr. Kite earned her doctorate degree in Public Health from the University of Texas Health Science Center, with minors in epidemiology and health policy. She also holds a Master’s in Health Science with a focus on emergency and disaster management.