Celebrated for his decades of influential work, Steven Ullmann, professor and director at the Center for Health Management and Policy at the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School, recently received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association.
The accolade was presented at a special event on Dec. 7, recognizing Ullmann's exceptional contributions to the healthcare sector.
With a career spanning five decades, Ullmann has not only educated thousands of students but has also significantly shaped healthcare policy in South Florida and beyond. His involvement in various advisory capacities extends his influence nationally, reflecting his dedication to the evolution of healthcare practices and education.
“I’ve been around for many, many years in the South Florida healthcare community,” Ullmann said. “Many of my students have gone into the highest-level healthcare positions, not only in South Florida, but nationally and globally as well.
“I’ve been doing this for 45 years at the University of Miami, and 50 years overall,” he said. “Over the course of my career, I’ve had over 15,000 students! But also, I’ve done stuff that’s made an impact on the tradition of healthcare down here as well. I’ve sat on many advisory boards in the South Florida community, and the national community, too.”
Ullmann tends to understate the precedent-setting impact he’s had, and continues to have, on the transformation of healthcare policy over the decades. National hospice services wouldn’t be able to get Medicare reimbursement, for example, were it not for Ullmann’s visionary work.
But in addition to being an internationally renowned authority on healthcare policy, Ullmann has a singular gift for making healthcare policy and management come alive inside Miami Herbert’s classrooms. That’s why the San Francisco native was given the UM President’s Medal in 2007 for his contributions to the University, the Faculty Senate Outstanding Teaching Award in 2011, and the James W. McLamore Outstanding Service Award in 2012.
From 1979, the year Ullmann was hired by the University of Miami, to today, Ullmann has seen the business of healthcare undergo an incredible sea change.
“When I first started in this field, healthcare made up about 8 percent of economic activity,” Ullman said. “Now, it’s approaching 20 percent of economic activity. So, it’s just become a much larger part of our economic system.
“In terms of Miami Herbert’s MBA health executive program, 25 years ago if I had one doctor a year, that was a lot. Now, more than half of the students in our executive programs are physicians. We now have medical students who in the past never would have thought about getting an MBA along with their medical degree.”
After half a century of helping educate and mold some of healthcare’s biggest luminaries, Ullmann’s passion for teaching still burns brightly.
“I love to teach!” Ullmann said. “I love walking into the classroom—it’s therapy for me. I love writing and am still a relatively active researcher, and I love that part of the job as well.”
