Rate My Professor Paige Powell

M. Paige Powell, PhD, MHA, serves as Associate Professor of Health Administration and Program Director for the Master of Health Administration (MHA) and Master of Science in Health Administration (MSHA) programs in the Department of Health Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Health Professions. She holds a PhD in Health Policy and Administration from Pennsylvania State University, earned in 2003, along with an MHA and a Bachelor of Professional Studies (BPS), both from the University of Memphis. Dr. Powell brings over 20 years of teaching experience in courses including Health Economics, Health Policy and Healthcare Systems, Healthcare Quality and Outcomes Management, and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Community Health Issues. Her career includes faculty positions at the University of South Carolina, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and University of Memphis, where she directed the MHA program from 2018, helped launch an online executive MHA degree, and led the program to reaccreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education. She also served as an adjunct faculty member at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School and joined VCU in 2022.

A recognized health policy expert, Dr. Powell’s research interests center on building capacity for patient and family caregivers to partner with researchers and providers in improving care for African American cancer patients and examining the influence of multiple chronic conditions on healthcare utilization, particularly in emergency departments. Her scholarly contributions include publications such as Kim, H., Mahmood, A., & Powell, M.P. (2021). Health Information-seeking through Personal Health Records among Women Susceptible to Breast Cancer. Health Behavior & Policy Review; Mahmood, A. et al. (2020). Self-Check-In Kiosks Utilization and Their Association With Wait Times in Emergency Departments. Journal of Emergency Medicine; Kim, H. et al. (2019). Mobile Health Application and e-Health Literacy: Opportunities and Concerns for Cancer Patients and Care Givers. Journal of Cancer Education; and Powell, M.P. et al. (2018). National Trends in Hospital Emergency Department Visits among Those with and without Multiple Chronic Conditions. Hospital Topics. Dr. Powell received the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in 2015 and the Association of University Programs in Health Administration’s 2022 John D. Thompson Prize for contributions to health administration education. She provides health policy commentary for television, radio, regional papers, and national medical news websites and coaches MHA students in national case competitions, with her Memphis teams reaching semi-finals three times in recent years.