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Master’s program helps execs prepare for challenges

By Greg Reid

Students learn how to best deliver and pay for care

As healthcare evolves, where do finance professionals fit in? Out front, helping to shape changes? Or more toward the back, ensuring the decisions of others all add up?

Thanks to an executive graduate program through Dartmouth College, Michael Goldberg finds himself among those out front. Way out front.

“The significance of a program like this one is not just what we can achieve locally, but what we can influence nationally,” said Goldberg, the CFO of Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, New York.

“Personally, the reward is in knowing we’re doing something to help this country address its healthcare situation.”

Goldberg is part of a five-person team from LIJMC enrolled in the Master of Health Care Delivery Science (MHCDS ) degree program offered jointly by the Tuck School of Business and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

The 18-month program is delivered through a mix of residential and distance learning pedagogy that meets Dartmouth's impeccable standards.

“We offer a truly integrated program,” said Robert Hansen, senior associate dean at the Tuck School. “We have Tuck from the management side of the equation, and the Dartmouth Institute, with its 30 years of research, on the health policy side. There’s nothing else like that.”

For a sense of Dartmouth’s influence in the future of healthcare, consider that in March, President Obama nominated Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim, a physician and global health expert, to lead the World Bank.

The MHCDS is a unique program with a single overarching objective: Empower leaders to affect change.

“This is a time of tremendous change, and we want to lead that change,” Hansen said. “We have 47 students currently enrolled, and each is a professional in a position to affect change within their organization.”

Students include physicians, administrators, finance professionals, insurance executives and legislators.

The idea is to learn together, and from each other.

Goldberg’s most recent study group included two physicians. That experience, he said, helped him better understand the thinking of both doctors and patients. What was the revelation for someone who regularly handles spreadsheets totaling millions of dollars?

“It’s not just about numbers,” Goldberg said. All the policy questions, “come down to the question, ‘How does that impact the people that need our help?’ ”

Students also participate in “action-learning projects,” designed to address problems they’re facing in the workplace.

Goldberg’s LIJMC team is studying ways to improve care for patients suffering from chronic obstructed pulmonary disease (COPD), the third-leading cause of death in the United States. Some 137 languages are spoken among LIJMC’s patient population. The team is developing a video and outreach program designed to educate patients about care options in ways that transcend cultural differences.

Goldberg notes that the COPD project will provide a template to address and treat other chronic diseases. It can be shared with LIJMC’s 14 other sites, and, ultimately, with Dartmouth classmates.

“(The Darmouth program) has really opened my eyes on the changes in healthcare and how we deliver and pay for it,” said Tara Laumenede, LIJMC’s director of patient services for critical care. “We’re learning from one another, and we better appreciate each other’s roles."

As Goldberg’s teammate, she said, “I’m learning to analyze and question data, and that’s helped in my decision-making. Ultimately, that will improve the quality of care we provide.”

For more information on the MHCDS program, visit mhcds.dartmouth.edu.