The Department of Public Health Sciences at Wichita State University has developed a new course, Health Care Entrepreneurship. Creation of the course is in response to three public health faculty receiving a Coleman Foundation Entrepreneurship Fellowship in fall 2009.

College of Health Professions public health sciences faculty Ngoyi Bukonda and Toni Pickard, both associate professors, and Ron Stephen, instructor, are the recipients of the Coleman fellowship. Together, they developed a course in health care entrepreneurship to answer student demand for acquiring skills to develop health care business ideas.

Specifically, this course will help budding student entrepreneurs who are interested in testing out business ideas in the health field. Students will develop skills in what to do with their ideas, how to assess how their ideas look to others and how to make plans to profit from these ideas.

"There is a need for entrepreneurs in health care to act as change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss, improving systems, inventing new approaches and creating solutions to pain in the health care marketplace," said Richard Muma, WSU chair and professor for public health sciences. That’s especially the case now, he said, in light of health care reform being signed into law.

Bukonda, Pickard and Stephen will team teach the course, each according to their own extensive experience in three aspects of health care.

Pickard will conduct a community-based lab in social entrepreneurship.

Bukonda will teach international health care entrepreneurship.

Stephen will teach business health care entrepreneurship.

The course will begin in fall 2010 in the College of Health Professions on the WSU main campus.