Executive MBA for Physicians Blog

Educating physician leaders in the new science of medicine and management

Tag: ETCP

Class of 2020: Wrapping up the EMBA for Physicians Program

Zoom meeting with students, friends, and family in small squaresThis May, the Class of 2020 finished their courses and degree requirements for the Executive MBA for Physicians program. The graduating physician-leaders presented their Executive Team Consulting Project, reflected on their leadership skill development with their executive coaches, and gathered with family for a virtual graduation party. The final 10 day residency which concludes the program provides physicians time to share what they have learned and how they have applied it, gain perspective on their growth, and celebrate their achievements.

The Executive Team Consulting Project is a 16-month capstone project where EMBA students lead a team of colleagues in their organizations in addressing a significant management issue. Typically students participate in a live poster session. Although the posters were presented virtually this year, students still shared their learning and successes with their colleagues. They used training in giving concise presentations from media expert Mike Nikitas and guidelines on creating clear, effective posters from ETCP professor Dr. Sally Ourieff. Students presented on numerous types of management and business challenges within healthcare, such as the role medical scribes can play in reducing physician burnout, ways to decrease the likelihood of readmission after heart failure, and strategies to reduce wait times between referrals at a spine center.

Participants also met with their executive coaches and their learning groups to participate in a final 360 degree leadership coaching session. With the help of the executive and peer coaches, students reflected on feedback gathered from colleagues for the second time in the 16 month program. The students also gave each other feedback and analyzed the goals they set at the beginning of the program while developing further goals for the future.

After their final intensive classes and presentations, the students gathered together with faculty, family, and friends to celebrate their graduation. They heard from graduation guest speaker Daniel Dawes, JD about health equity and the social and political determinants of health. Graduates Dr. Samaan Rafeq, a pulmonologist in New York City, and Dr. Shaneeta Johnson, a bariatric surgeon in Atlanta then gave inspiring speeches about their transformative experience within the program including the lifelong network of colleagues and friends they developed with each other. The students then toasted with champagne and moved their graduation cap tassels from the right to the left.

The Executive MBA for Physicians program is proud of everything the Class of 2020 has accomplished so far and is excited to see what they do in the future. Congratulations graduates!

EMBA Alum receives funding to expand his Executive Team Consulting Project

Recently, we chatted with Dr. Michael Tang, an alumnus of the class of 2019, to learn more about his successful Executive Team Consulting Project (ETCP). Dr. Tang is a psychiatrist and pediatrician who works at Dimock Community Health Center in Boston. He worked with his organization to focus his ETCP on behavioral health integration through a management approach. He has received funding to expand this project to additional health centers throughout Massachusetts.

The ETCP is a capstone activity that supports each student as they launch, lead, and work with a team of their colleagues to complete a change initiative that impacts an aspect of their own work in healthcare. Keep reading to learn about the process of creating and implementing a successful project.

What was the subject of your ETCP?

My ETCP built upon existing work within my organization, Dimock Community Health Center. It highlighted the importance of a management approach to Behavioral Health Integration. For nearly ten years, Dimock has found that fully merging primary care medical and outpatient behavioral health clinics enable operational efficiencies and financial sustainability that directly lead to improved patient care. My ETCP sought to model this integration, including through a linear program, dashboard of metrics, and workflow changes to reduce wait times. The project further aimed to disseminate this model, contributing to a peer-review publication and a multi-year grant to create a Leadership Learning Network for C-suite leaders in ten Massachusetts Community Health Centers to learn about these management strategies.  

This project is significant for our organization as it helped our health center share innovations with colleagues from across the Commonwealth. Integration is particularly important for the new Massachusetts Medicaid Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), and other value-based models that reward improved patient outcomes, population health, and provider satisfaction, and lower health care costs. We believe this Behavioral Health Integration approach helps providers better achieve this Quadruple Aim.

How did you decide on the topic?

It advanced the work I was already doing at my job on integrating primary care, behavioral health, and substance use disorder services.

Tell us about how you acquired support (financial support, leadership buy-in, etc.) within your institution.

There was great synergy between my ETCP and my job. The project advanced my thinking and generated content, which I could then take back to my job to build support from my leadership, assist my colleagues, and increase financial backing.

What was the process of forming your team like?

It went smoothly, since we were already a well aligned organization and the project helped move our team forward.

How is the project evolving now that you have graduated?

The ETCP continues to strengthen and expand even after graduation. We are continuing to strengthen our behavioral health integration within the health center, using skills and techniques developed in the ETCP. We were funded by Boston Children’s Hospital to spread our Behavioral Health Integration model to 10 additional health centers across the Commonwealth, disseminating these best practices.

How did the Brandeis EMBA for Physicians program help you along the way?

The Brandeis EMBA  for Physicians program helped this project in all regards. Accounting helped me understand the finances and return on investment. Leadership helped me think about the strategy and change management. Operations helped design a linear program and manage wait lists. The Health Care Entrepreneurship class shaped this start-up project. Relational Coordination helped me understand team dynamics. Marketing helped think about messaging and population segmentation. Systems Thinking introduced a clear approach to problem solving. Each class added a new element that the ETCP pulled together.

The program overall helped me become a better manager and leader.

Putting the Degree into Action: EMBA for Physicians Students present their Executive Team Consulting Projects

Earlier this month the EMBA Class of 2019 participated in the Executive Team Consulting Project (ETCP) interactive poster session. This session was the culmination of the 16-month capstone project where EMBA students led a team of colleagues in their organizations in addressing a significant management issue. All 41 students presented their posters in a series of rotations throughout the morning. ETCP Professor Dr. Sally Ourieff, and EMBA Program Director Dr. Jon Chilingerian joined the students in circulating to all of the posters and learning about each others’ projects. It was a great opportunity for the physicians to support their fellow classmates and gather ideas to address their own organizational challenges in the future.

The ETCP curriculum is designed to be a practical application of the learning physicians do throughout the course of the program. EMBA physicians are able to take their new understanding of the science of medicine and management to their own organizations. Many have seen a significant result from their project be it negotiating successfully with stakeholders, reaching consensus on tough decisions, or achieving notable improvement in various metrics (including quality and performance measures, operations, and the bottom line).

One physician analyzed and implemented the closing of a major service line to strengthen and focus his hospital’s service delivery and financial health. His region has multiple hospitals but still lacked beds. The line he chose to close was offered at other locations regionally and had low utilization (42% occupancy rate), thus freeing up beds for other high-need areas (an average of 10 people were held waiting for beds daily in another part of the hospital). In the first quarter after project implementation, there has been a revenue increase of 18%. The hospital is still waiting to complete the implementation, and they expect this percentage to increase even further at that time.

Another physician instituted a new financially beneficial imaging service line at his organization. This new line resulted in high patient satisfaction and financial benefit. It also improved employee morale due to a breakdown in silos between two departments and other byproducts of the project, such as improved scheduling.

Multiple physicians addressed various aspects of the opioid epidemic resulting in significant changes in prescribing patterns and access to care. One physician created a Pain Management Committee at a safety net institution, which resulted in a total decrease in narcotic utilization of 20% during a narcotic shortage. After the shortage was over, there was some recidivism, but decreases have continued. Another physician implemented a multifaceted response to reduce the overprescription of opioids in her medical center. As a result, prescriptions in the emergency department decreased by 20%.

Throughout the past 16 months, 41 organizations were touched by the students’ learning. Projects ranged from new entrepreneurial ventures to new service lines, to closed service lines. They have garnered significant organizational support, including one $300,000 grant for implementation. We are excited to see how these projects continue to evolve and what doors they are able to open for these physicians, their organizations, and their patients.

An EMBA Alum’s experience with a successful Executive Team Consulting Project

The Executive Team Consulting Project within the Brandeis Executive MBA for Physicians Program (EMBA) is a capstone activity for each student to launch, lead, and work with a team of their colleagues to complete a change initiative that impacts an aspect of their own work in health care.

Dr. Evan Lipsitz is an alumnus of the EMBA class of 2017.  Currently, he is the Chief of the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and Medical Director of the Noninvasive Vascular Laboratories at the Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. During his EMBA, he focused his Executive Team Consulting Project on acquiring and implementing a new system at the vascular laboratory for image management reporting and data storage to replace an outdated system that was used across several of the organization’s inpatient hospital and outpatient sites. The medical center recently finished the implementation of the project, and he joins us to reflect on the experience.

How did you choose this specific project? 

We recognized the need for an enhanced, integrated system more than 10 years ago. About 5 years ago, we went through one complete cycle of product evaluations and replaced the old legacy system with another that was essentially a beta version, and not up to date, didn’t meet our needs, and was not really sustainable. As this became apparent, I chose it as my project with the hope that some of the skills and information I had gotten through the EMBA would help me and the team to make a better business case for the project. It wasn’t that people didn’t recognize the need, it was just that there are so many projects in so many areas that require attention at a large medical center like ours. It became apparent early on in the EMBA that we would cover a variety of subjects each of which would be valuable for approaching this problem. We could then make a case based on business sense and medical necessity, from the point of view of all stakeholders.

How has the project evolved since graduation?

When I presented my progress on the project at the end of the EMBA program, it had been presented to my organization, but it had not been approved yet. The approval came after graduation. From there, we had to purchase the product, plan the implementation, and work out some of the kinks after the go live. There was still a lot of work to be done around implementation itself and how it was going to work with IT. Much of that work was up front but there were still a lot of things on the backend that we needed to work on. We finished the EMBA in May of 2017, and it was about a year and a half until the system was actually up and running. I consider it done only now that the health system is using it.

What was the process of forming your team like?

I think we knew who most of the players were, and we involved a lot of people. As with a lot of these projects, it involved IT heavily, as well the people who manage the labs that do the studies. It also involves physicians because we actually have to read the studies. Finally, it involves hospital administration. We needed a comprehensive and invested group of stakeholders to build a strong business case. With this project, the medical need was obvious. It was the business case that was most crucial and which required refinement.

What do you think made your project successful?

I think the most important thing was making the case from an accounting perspective. I used all the skills from the managerial accounting course. We are able to frame the conversation in new way. Another was using the relational coordination tools we got in the program to build strong teams. Also, working with the team and engaging and encouraging all stakeholders to get some outside the box thinking was helpful. A big stumbling block, at least early on, was that we were going to host the entire system on our servers as the organization was understandably worried about privacy, which would have been a huge expense. Another option was to host the system remotely. After much discussion, everybody came to realize that to make this work, and in anticipation of other upcoming projects, we would need to look to host remotely. It was also apparent that many other hospitals were moving that way as well for similar reasons. So luck and timing played a role as well. The project might not have happened three years ago. The institution deserves a lot of credit for their willingness to move in this direction. As a result, similar projects might have an even easier time looking forward three years from now.

How did Brandeis’s EMBA for Physicians program help you along the way?

The program was invaluable. I don’t think I could have done it without it. It allowed me to focus on all the important areas other than just medical need.  The medical needs were important, and while they seemed obvious, they were not enough. I tried to choose a project that would let me use skills from almost every single class that we had. In some ways, this is not a particularly ingenious project, but I think that the skills and tools needed allowed for really good practical application of all the things that we learned. Practicing these skills will help me do similar projects if needed in the future.

What advice would you give to a physician who is considering pursuing an EMBA?

This program was great. In this day and age, it gives you a skill set and a perspective that you don’t otherwise get. I think to do it at a time when you have work experience under your belt is very meaningful. No matter what you decide to do with it or how you decide to apply it, it’s knowledge that makes you a better physician in the system where we are subject to so many systematic constraints. Understanding those are really important. Also it’s important in moving forward for physicians to be involved in policy and business because they have boots on the ground. Also, I would add that the program is really a great journey. It’s a lot of fun. It is a lot of work. It’s a big commitment. But I think well worth it.

Making the Most of Your EMBA: The Executive Team Consulting Project – From Real Learning to Real Life

By: Sally Ourieff, MD
Lecturer and Faculty for the Executive Team Consulting Project

Program Director Dr. Jon Chilingerian aptly describes the Heller School’s Executive MBA (EMBA) for Physicians curriculum as teaching “at the nexus of medicine and management science.” As an EMBA for Physicians student, you learn a great deal about the science of management. In your Executive Team Consulting Project (ETCP), you learn the “art” of applying that new knowledge in the real world. In the process, you will face tough challenges and have to solve interesting problems. You will also discover, however, the best in yourself and your colleagues and have some fun along the way.

The goal of the ETCP is for each student to launch, lead, and work with a team of their colleagues to complete a change initiative that impacts an aspect of their own work in health care. This could be a problem that needs to be solved or an opportunity that can be leveraged. It can relate to anything from service delivery, organizational effectiveness, or quality, safety and performance metrics, to a clinical innovation, cost savings, patient education, or access to care. It can be any issue that you believe needs to be addressed and will make a difference for those with whom you work or serve.

One of the first challenges is choosing the right project. The project spans the entire 16 months of the program and culminates with a paper and poster presentation in the 4th and final semester. You will spend a lot of time on this so choose something you are genuinely interested in and care about. It should, however, also be important to your organization, leaders, and colleagues. It is hard to rally a team to implement an idea you love but no one else thinks is valuable! It should be ambitious but doable; require a team but not overburden them; enable you to grow as a leader but empower your team to lead as well; tie-in specific learning but push you to learn new things. In the end, the ETCP prepares you to return to your life post-MBA with a proven record of implementing a successful change initiative that made a difference. I will provide you with lots of support, as will the entire faculty. We are here to help you succeed. Most importantly, you will have each other as your most dedicated support network.

We have had very positive feedback on this project experience. Students have told us that it is one of the best aspects of the program, and they welcomed the opportunity to implement a major project in their own institution. They also appreciated hearing about all the work their classmates had been doing throughout the semester. According to one student, “I learned 35 different approaches to project management and leadership.” The ETCP brings to life all the facets of your learning. There is a lot to look forward to.

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