Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA)

History

AUPHA grew out of the efforts of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to professionalize the management of hospitals following World War II. As the war wound down, the foundation identified the improvement of the hospitals in the United States and Canada as a priority for programming because the hospital sector had been neglected during the war years. The decision was influenced by the presence on the staff of Andrew Pattullo, who had come to the Kellogg Foundation from the University of Chicago program in hospital administration, and by the fact that Mr. Kellogg had been the administrator of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, an Adventist institution headed by his brother.

The founding programs in AUPHA were the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Columbia University, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, Washington University, and Yale University. In 1950, AUPHA was incorporated in Illinois as a not-for-profit organization.

The Kellogg Foundation was the moving force behind the development of the field from an advisory committee headed by Charles E. Prall in the late 1940s through the founding of AUPHA. Andrew Pattullo participated in all the early developments, including funding most of the programs. And some small grants to the association supported projects during the years 1949 to 1963.

From the outset, AUPHA set standards for admission to the association. The first set of standards included the requirement that programs granting master's degrees require students to have at least one academic year of courses (of which a third must be directly concerned with hospital administration) and a year of residency or equivalent experience, have two professionally qualified faculty members, and have a degree of autonomy in operations. These standards were modified many times over the years before the establishment of the quasi-independent Accrediting Commission on Graduate Education for Hospital Administration in 1966.

Over the years, healthcare administration education has changed, and AUPHA has changed along with it. From an original membership of seven graduate programs in the United States and Canada, it has grown to more than 160 graduate and undergraduate programs in North America and hundreds of personal, corporate, and affiliated program members all over the world. AUPHA is now an international consortium of graduate and undergraduate health administration programs and practitioners engaged in the development of health management education.

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