WGU to Host New Accountable Care Learning Collaborative

SALT LAKE CITY, June 18, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Western Governors University (WGU), a national leader in innovative healthcare education, announced today that it will host the new Accountable Care Learning Collaborative (ACLC). The new, nonprofit collaborative, the largest accountable care collaborative in the world, is being formed by the merger of Leavitt Partners' Accountable Care Cooperative and the Brookings Institution's ACO Learning Network.

The new collaborative will allow stakeholders to leverage insight from hundreds of accountable care organizations and members to evaluate how to scale and grow accountable care. The ACLC will be co-chaired by former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt and former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan. The ACLC will be housed by WGU, which offers an ideal environment to promote member collaboration, provide training in integrated healthcare operations and strategy, and provide anytime-anywhere educational and support resources.

The pioneer and leader in competency-based education, WGU offers bachelor's and master's degrees in health professions that have been developed in collaboration with major employers such as HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, and Cedars-Sinai. This fall, the online university will introduce a new Master of Science in Integrated Healthcare Management degree program, which has been designed from the ground up to educate leaders to manage healthcare organizations over the continuum of care. Curriculum for the program was developed with the guidance of experts in accountable care, including:

• Dr. Brent James, M.D. – Executive Director of the Institute for Health Care Delivery Research and Vice President of Medical Research and Continuing Medical Education at Intermountain Healthcare
• Dr. Arnie Milstein, MPH – Professor of Medicine and Director of the Stanford Clinical Excellence Research Center, Stanford University
• Dr. Shirley Weis, Chief Administrative Officer (retired), Mayo Clinic
• Dr. Paul Keckley, Healthcare Industry Analyst and Policy Expert

"WGU is pleased to host the Accountable Care Learning Collaborative," said WGU President Dr. Robert Mendenhall. "As we introduce our new master's degree in integrated healthcare management, WGU's College of Health Professions faculty will contribute to and learn from participation in this new endeavor."

About WGU 
Now with 60,000 students and 45,000 graduates nationwide, WGU offers more than 50 online, competency-based bachelor's and master's degree programs in the high-demand fields of business, K-12 teacher education, information technology, and health professions, including nursing. Recognized by President Obama as an innovative university that "awards credits based on learning, not seat time," WGU has been named one of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Companies " and has been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered," NBC Nightly News, CNN's "Schools of Thought," and in The New York Times.

The university has earned the support of more than 20 leading corporations and foundations, including AT&T, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lilly Endowment, HCA, Hewlett-Packard, Lumina Foundation, Microsoft, Oracle, SunGard Higher Education, USA Funds, and Zions Bank. More information is available at www.wgu.edu or by calling 866.225.5948.

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SOURCE Western Governors University

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