View instructions for electronic submission of entries.

The American College of Healthcare Executives is pleased to sponsor the annual Richard J. Stull Student Essay Competition in Healthcare Management. The purpose of the competition is to stimulate and demonstrate the ability of future healthcare executives to identify and describe important issues and developments in their chosen profession. Top winners in the graduate and undergraduate categories will receive monetary awards.

Topics

ACHE invites eligible students to submit high-quality essays with a focus on health management topics such as:

• strategic planning and policy
• accountability of and/or relationships among board, medical staff and executive management
• financial management
• human resources management
• systems management
• plant and facility management
• comprehensive systems of services
• quality assessment and assurance
• professional, public, community or inter-organization relations
• governmental relations or regulation
• marketing
• education
• research
• law and ethics

Eligibility

1. The competition is open to students currently enrolled in either a graduate or undergraduate U.S. or Canadian health administration program that is a participant in the ACHE Higher Education Network. To be eligible, entrants must be either an ACHE Student Associate or be an active affiliate of ACHE in another status (Member, Fellow).
2. Essays must be the product of one individual. Joint efforts are not acceptable.
3. Essays must not have been published previously.
4. Students must be currently enrolled. Individuals completing a residency or other postgraduate experience are not eligible. Individuals enrolled in an Executive Program are eligible to represent their program provided their essays are the product of one individual.

Instructions for Essayists

Program faculty must select and submit one essay to represent their program in the competition. Only one entry per program will be accepted. Schools with both graduate and undergraduate degree programs may submit separate entries for each.

Essays may be up to 15 pages, excluding executive summary, endnotes and bibliography. The executive summary should be 100 to 150 words and follow the title page. The student’s name should appear only on the title page; the title of the essay should appear on the executive summary and on the first page of the text.

All essays must be typed, double-spaced (including references) and have margins approximately 1 ¼ inches all around.

View Sample Essays:
Hospital–Physician Informed Consent: New Use for an Old Doctrine (PDF)
Addressing Variation in Hospital Quality: Is Six Sigma the Answer? (PDF)

Evaluations

Essays selected to be submitted to ACHE will be subjected to a thorough review by panels composed of practitioners and faculty. The panels employ five equally weighted criteria:

1. Significance of the subject to healthcare management
2. Innovativeness in approach to the topic
3. Thoroughness and precision in developing the subject
4. Practical usefulness for guiding management action
5. Clarity and conciseness of expression

Tables and figures should be used only when they enhance or clarify the information that is presented in the text; large tables consisting of complex statistical data are discouraged. Manuscript for all tables and figures should be placed after the text manuscript.

Evaluation

Essays selected to be submitted to ACHE will be subjected to a thorough review by panels composed of practitioners and faculty. They will employ five equally weighted criteria:

Awards

Cash prizes will be awarded to the first-place, second-place, and third-place essayists in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions. Each student who has his or her essay submitted to ACHE will receive a certificate and personalized keepsake in recognition of being selected to represent his or her program.

The graduate and undergraduate students whose essays are judged the winning entries will each receive $3,000; their programs will receive $1,000. The second and third place graduate and undergraduate finalists will receive $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.

All six finalists will be invited to attend the Congress on Healthcare Leadership as guests of ACHE with transportation and accommodation expenses for two nights paid by ACHE. Awards will be presented at the Leon I. Gintzig Commemorative Lecture and Luncheon during Congress.

Publication

The two winning entries will be published in future issues of the Journal of Healthcare Management. These two essays will become the permanent property of the Foundation of the American College of Healthcare Executives and may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the editor.

Where to Send Entries and Inquiries

Essays must be received at ACHE by close of business on December 7, 2007

Entries are only accepted electronically. To view instructions for electronic submission, click here.

For more information, please contact Reed L. Morton, PhD, FACHE, Associate Director, Division of Research, at (312) 424-9444 or rmorton@ache.org.