It seems the prevailing demand in health care these days is to take a side in the public debate. Far better if we can sidestep that inclination, and instead take a role in searching for solutions to the complex issues facing the health care delivery system in our nation and around the world. I guess that many, even those familiar with our school, would not know that several of our faculty members are quite active in exploring issues related to health care.

We're taking steps to correct that lack of awareness, most immediately with Innovation in Health Care Delivery Systems, a symposium to be hosted at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on April 29-30, in which academics and health care professionals will gather to discuss knowledge discoveries impacting health care management, decision-making and information utilization, just to name a few topics.

Faculty participating in the symposium come from several programs at McCombs, and from several of the schools and colleges across the university. Reuben McDaniel summarizes the promise of this seminar in his recent guest blog on Health Care a New Initiative at McCombs.

I'm particularly pleased this is a cross disciplinary effort sponsored by the McCombs School of Business, The George McMillan Fleming Center for Law and Innovation in Biomedicine and Healthcare, the Cockrell School of Engineering, the IC2 Institute, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and Thomas Archipley II.

Would you like to know which McCombs faculty members are researching topics related to health care? A partial list of recent initiatives includes:

• Mary Dunn, Management, “Institutional Logics and Institutional Pluralism: The Contestation of Care and Science Logics in U.S. Medical Schools, 1967-2005”
• Linda L. Golden, Marketing, and Patrick L. Brockett, IROM, “H1N1 Prevention Behavior: An Internet Survey of Knowledge and Information Across Seven Countries”
• Kristie Loescher, Management, “Characteristics of an Information-Driven Organization: Reengineering Decision-Making Within a Healthcare Network”
• Reuben R. McDaniel, Jr., IROM, and Holly Lanham, Ph.D. candidate, “Heterogeneity in Electronic Health Record Use: Information Technology Use as Influenced by Professional Values and Perspectives on Uncertainty”
• Andrew Whinston, “Information Technology–Enabled Contingent Contracts and Reverse Auctions in Healthcare Management”
• Leon S. Lasdon, IROM, and Reuben R. McDaniel, IROM, "Cost Drivers and Resource Allocation in Military Health Care Systems"

Our Texas MBA program will soon be positioned to take a more active role in education for health care professionals, as both the Houston and DFW programs move to new campus locations with University of Texas system partner schools, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

While giving improved learning opportunities to all of our MBA students in these programs, the new locations will also bring our programs into closer proximity to professionals who seek to apply MBA problem-solving skills in the health care industry.