UF names new chairman of health services administration

The University of Florida College of Health Professions has appointed a nationally known health services researcher to head the college’s health services administration department.

R. Paul Duncan, Ph.D., is the Louis C. and Jane Gapenski professor of health services administration and has been a member of the department’s faculty since 1979. He succeeds Niccie McKay, Ph.D., who will continue to serve as a faculty member in the department.

In his own research, Duncan examines access to medical and dental care and issues involving health insurance and the uninsured. He leads a team focused on estimating the number of people without health insurance in particular states and comparing the health insurance experiences of various groups, including those identified by age, race, income, employment circumstances, education, location and combinations of these factors.

In recent years, the team has studied uninsured populations in Florida, Indiana and Kansas.

Duncan also is leading a three-year project to study the origin, design, implementation and outcomes of Florida’s Medicaid Provider Service Network, an alternative health-care delivery program for the state’s low-income population.

Duncan believes that one of his department’s greatest resources is the faculty.

“The health services administration department has spectacularly good and mostly very young and energetic faculty,” he said. “A hallmark of the department over the last five to six years has been the hiring of one or two new faculty members almost every year.”

The department also has expanded its educational programs. Faculty members contribute expertise to the department’s core professional degree program, the Master of Health Administration (MHA). In recent years, the department has added an MHA degree program for working health-care professionals whose career obligations make it impossible for them to participate in the traditional program. The department actively participates in UF’s Master of Public Health program, and a Ph.D. program in health services research was established in 1999.

Research in the health services administration department often focuses on issues relevant to vulnerable or disadvantaged groups and their access to health care. As the populations of Florida and the nation age, studies on access to and utilization of care by elders, including services tied to rehabilitation, will become increasingly important, Duncan said. These interests are manifested in the department’s close alliances with such UF research entities as the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Brooks Center for Rehabilitation Studies.

“I am committed to all three of the traditional areas of university endeavor — teaching, research and service,” Duncan said. “Activities in these areas will continue to inform and influence each other as the department develops. The current faculty and the mix of programs provide a wonderful context in which that kind of synergy is possible.”