The benefits of a medical MBA program

The business of healthcare has never been more difficult. Physicians are often at the mercy of business decisions that, from their perspective, make no sense. Many physicians are eager to find a way to transform health care in a way that better benefits both patients and providers. They would be well served by enrolling in an MBA program, specifically one designed for physicians, says Amrou Awaysheh, PhD, MBA.

Awaysheh is the OneAmerica Foundation Chair at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He is an operations professor in the schools’ Physician MBA program, a hybrid online and face-to-face course designed exclusively for physicians. Awaysheh sat down with Medical Economics to discuss the program and how it’s helping doctors lead healthcare change. The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Medical Economics (ME): How does an MBA complement a doctor’s medical training?

Amrou Awaysheh, Ph.D., MBA: Medical school teaches doctors how to care for patients. The Kelley Physician MBA teaches physicians how to lead and change health care, how physicians can be a change agent in their organization. We provide clinicians with the business and management tools to think about how they can change processes, improve performance and drive policy change.

While you may think that medical school teaches doctors how to care for patients, we teach doctors the business of medicine.

ME: Who do you see as the ideal candidate for a medical MBA?

Awaysheh: The ideal candidate is someone who wants to make bold changes for healthcare, for patients and for themselves. He is someone who wants to lead and not just sit on the sidelines.

Healthcare is really evolving and doctors have a couple of options. They can just be someone who watches change happen and takes whatever solutions come their way, or they can be someone who has a voice at the table and helps drive that change.

ME: What specific leadership and management skills can physicians who are pursuing an MBA in this program gain?

Awaysheh: They are able to speak the language of the non-clinical part of health care, the part that manages health care. They acquire financial skills that help link decisions to organizational outcomes. They will understand market dynamics, government regulations, how to identify bottlenecks, manage patient flows, improve the overall patient experience and maximize assets. They study all elements of the business.

ME: Do you have examples from your resume of how doctors who are in this program apply the skills they are learning?

Awaysheh: Students complete projects that examine a problem in their organization, how they can change it, and what the improvement is.

An example is a large health system in the country that has rotation in its emergency room and is running relatively slowly. They looked to improve patient performance, and in the end, that improvement saved the system about $5 million.

For a different project, the student team studied how to renovate operating rooms in a three-hospital system and found about $90 million in savings by changing a few things.

Again, this is physician directed. They are doing the analysis and putting in place solutions that doctors value.

ME: Most doctors will be familiar with an MBA program. How does your MBA program at the Kelley School of Business, which is specifically for physicians, differ from a standard program?

Awaysheh: It is very different from an executive MBA program. Our program is different because we only accept PhDs or DOs who are three years post-residency. They come from the United States and represent a wide variety of specialties.

Basic business and leadership concepts are taught through a health lens. We have specific courses focused on the business of healthcare and have developed content and case study materials that cover business issues. They also learn a lot from their fellow doctors.

ME: What kind of support and resources are available to students to help them balance their clinical responsibilities with their own
MBA studies?

Awaysheh: At the Kelley School, we are pioneers in online business education and have developed the Physician MBA to be a true hybrid program.

So the students have online interactions with their professors over the course of a few weeks, and then they come to Indianapolis for what we call a residency period, which is an intensive three-day experience where they take in all the concepts that have been . learn online and apply them in person. They meet with their peers and network. They do not have to take so much time from their clinical practice, as it is only three days every three months. Throughout the program, online content is delivered at night, so they don’t need to take a break from their practice. We have faculty who specialize in the business of medicine who have been teaching this program for over a decade, and there is a personal executive coach and his cohort of like-minded medical peers.

We have the world’s largest business school alumni network of over 130,000 people to tap into as well.

ME: What are the hands-on learning experiences like?

Awaysheh: I’ll walk you through how we’ve designed our residency experiences. Students have four hands-on, face-to-face immersion experiences throughout the program.

The program begins with an intensive five-day leadership residency where everyone gets to know each other. One of the experiences is in Washington, DC, where they learn about health policy and advocacy. There’s one I run where we look at operations and process improvement. They implement Lean Six Sigma, which results in a project that focuses on how they can transform healthcare delivery in their own organization. And finally, our program concludes with a hands-on consulting project.

ME: Can you share some alumni success stories?

Awaysheh: I believe that each of our graduates has a phenomenal impact on their organizations. A couple of examples that come to mind: A graduate used his knowledge of operational process improvement in leadership courses to redesign his urology clinic and reduce the time taken for a frequent procedure. It used to be 102 minutes, and they reduced it to 29 minutes. What they saw was greater access, greater efficiency and increased revenue while improving quality and patient satisfaction.

Another graduate advanced to chief physician at his hospital while still in the program. Today she is president and general director of this organization. Another graduate went from a family medicine clinic to become an associate vice president of a major pharmaceutical company.

ME: Any thoughts on the value of this program for physicians?

Awaysheh: All doctors end up in medical school because they want to make an impact on human lives. And maybe today, some of them feel frustrated and want to be an agent of change.

This is what our program allows you to do. It gives you the tools, skills, and vocabulary to get a seat at the table where health care decisions are made. It should happen on the clinic floor, but it usually happens behind closed doors in meetings.

Our medical graduates can get a seat at these tables and participate in making things better for doctors and improving health care in America. This is what we do: we empower doctors. We provide the entrepreneurial mindset to help transform health care, one physician at a time.