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Health Services Policy and Management (HSPM) is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the promotion of personal and public health through planning, organizing, directing, controlling, coordinating and evaluating health services.
August 24, 2026 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
Health services policy and management doctoral candidate Maushmi Patel has received a dissertation award from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). With $20,000 in support, Patel will conduct a mixed methods evaluation of family-centered care coordination for children and youth with special health care needs.
“One in five children under the age of 18 has special healthcare needs that require specialized, coordinated services,” Patel says. “In the U.S., we rely on the collaboration of key stakeholders to provide high-quality care for a range of physical, developmental, behavioral and emotional conditions that children face. However, national estimates indicate that nearly half of youth with special healthcare needs do not receive this comprehensive coordination.”
Fragmented systems across sectors like healthcare, education, payments, and social services are nearly impossible for families to navigate on their own. Previous research has demonstrated that pediatric care coordination, which is based on patient and family-centered approaches, is an effective and efficient method for organizing the complex healthcare and other services needed to help children with special needs thrive. Prior studies have shown that child and family well-being improve when children and youth with special healthcare needs are recipients of the pediatric care coordination model.
After spending more than a decade as a dentist serving marginalized communities in rural India, Patel expected to observe fewer health disparities when she made the move to the U.S. However, working at a dental practice revealed similar challenges (e.g., insurance coverage, care access in rural areas, fragmented services), and Patel decided to pursue an MBA in Healthcare Executive Management.
Now armed with a systems-level perspective of healthcare delivery, she wanted to dig even deeper. With interests in community-based participatory research and patient engagement, Patel decided to enroll in the Arnold School’s Ph.D. in Health Services Policy and Management program.
Patel credits her mentor, HSPM associate professor Nabil Natafgi, for his guidance and support throughout her doctoral journey. As she begins her dissertation year, she looks forward to the continued support and insights of her dissertation committee members, Elizabeth Crouch, Bankole Olatosi, and Ann Blair Kennedy. She will leverage the resources and infrastructure of the Patient Engagement Studio, where she has served as a graduate research assistant since 2023, to better understand care coordination for children and youth with special health care needs by examining how policies, implementation, and care delivery experiences work together to shape care coordination processes and outcomes for children and their families.
“The SREB Dissertation Award will allow me to fully dedicate my time to advancing rigorous, equity-focused research, strengthening my teaching practice, and deepening my engagement with communities,” Patel says. “My goal is to advance patient engagement in research and transformative student learning to help shape more equitable, responsive and inclusive health systems for the future.”