Consulting Practice: Healthcare Management, Design, and Strategy

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND LEARNING OBJECTIVES The U.S. healthcare system is an enormously complex, trillion-dollar industry, accounting for approximately 18% of GDP. The healthcare sector is vast and covers multiple different players from patients, providers, payors, to bio/pharma developers and innovators. Each part of the healthcare sector brings a different set of business challenges that touch on aspects from Finance, Marketing, Operations, Accounting, and more. The healthcare industry is going through a transformation with the development of new technologies, increased sophistication and adoption of electronic medical records systems and data collection architectures, and new models of the delivery of care and payment systems. This tremendous dynamism is unmatched by any other industry and offers incredible opportunities for new business endeavors. This course provides students the opportunity to learn about i) approaches to doing consulting; ii) key considerations diving strategic decision-making in the healthcare industry; and iii) the chance to put these concepts to practice by working on a set of company-sponsored applied projects. Student teams of 5-6 people, with 3-4 MBA (CBS) students and 1-2 medical (CUIMC) students, will work hand in hand with the instructors and company representatives to achieve company goals through the practical application of fundamental core business practices. Through these projects, students will be exposed to the unique challenges and opportunities in the healthcare sector. Some examples of potential projects include: For a pharmaceutical company, evaluate the commercial potential of a new therapeutic class. Evaluate and identify improvement opportunities in the patient evaluation process of a clinical unit at CUIMC. Redesign the standard workflow ad evaluate the financial and operational impact of these changes. Utilize consumer predictive analytics to guide marketing strategies for a biotech device. The scope of sponsoring companies spans large firms in biotech and pharmaceuticals, smaller startups in healthcare analytics and/or biotech, large provider systems, as well as smaller clinics. Companies provide the project scope and relevant data, faculty provides guidance on best practices, and your team will provide the answers. Throughout this course, students will execute on a healthcare project to: Use tools and ideas from operations, business analytics, finance, marketing, and strategy to solve interesting and exciting business problems in the healthcare sector Learn how to formulate relevant business questions and how to break it down into tangible milestones Learn how to iterate on a solution to continually improve it Learn how to measure improvement using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Learn how to collaborate meaningfully with multiple stakeholders Communicate results to both clinical and non-clinical audiences. TARGET AUDIENCE This course is targeted at students that have a demonstrated interest in healthcare and/or consulting and seek the opportunity to implement their interests in real-world environment.