The Public University Partnership Model

The Center for Health Care Financing, housed as it is within a public university, places deliberate emphases on translational research and information sharing. Guided by a philosophy that public programs are best run by dedicated public employees working in the public’s interest, not by private companies working for personal pecuniary interest, we believe it is vitally important that state governments and their respective public universities partner to develop a greater capacity to maintain operational control over core public agency functions.

In Massachusetts, we have learned how to leverage our state university system to address human service needs. Other states can do the same by permitting the university system to fulfill its mission and create a sustainable resource base for state governments. At the same time, state agencies can benefit from the university’s clinical, research and policy expertise to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations. While agencies have unmatched subject expertise, they are often challenged by a lack of consistent and professional advisory and operational resources. The public university can become a trusted advisor, perhaps even embedding itself within an agency or department’s operations – as we do in Massachusetts –  to supply the clinical leadership that would be cost prohibitive for a private vendor to provide.

Our team has years of experience forging and maintaining public-to-public partnerships. We now advise other public universities that are interested in adopting similar models with their own state agencies.