Healthcare Quality Partnerships: An Emerging Educational Frontier For Industrial Engineering Technology Programs

With the understanding that the industrial engineering profession has grown out of industrial/manufacturing organizations, it is important to note that the profession has gradually matured to the point where it is readily being accepted in service industries such as hospitals, retail stores, and banking. Today, this means that industrial engineers are one of the most versatile of the engineering professions, spanning various degrees of functions within various types of organizations. Therefore, educational institutions that offer Industrial Engineering (IE) and Industrial Engineering Technology (IET) curriculum must also offer a versatile curriculum that will allow their graduates to gain experience in various areas other than traditional manufacturing thereby allowing them greater opportunity to enter into these non-traditional areas. This paper will focus on strategies that have been used at Purdue University regional campuses to develop successful on-going partnerships between their IE and IET faculty and one of the larger service industries, healthcare and hospitals. The partnerships that have been developing over the past few years have provided various engagement opportunities for faculty and students alike. This paper will discuss topics such as funding of faculty involvement in hospital projects, the integration of students into the on-going efforts, as well as adaptation of curriculum and further collaborative efforts that are being developed with medical/nursing programs within the various university campuses involved.