BizEd

NovDec2013

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The Obamacare Effect IN 2010, THE U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama passed the Affordable Care Act, which aims to provide more affordable health insurance to more Americans. Since then, debate has raged on its effects. With implementation of the act's reforms due to take effect Jan. 1, 2014, what changes are occurring in U.S. business programs that focus on healthcare? Some schools are seeing an increase in the number of doctors pursuing MBAs. That's the case at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in Durham, North Carolina. From 2004 through 2009, an average of 13 doctors applied for Fuqua's Daytime MBA in Health Sector Management; from 2010—when the act was passed—to 2013, that number increased to 21. During the same time frames, doctors who applied for the school's healthcare MBA increased from 17 to 25. "Business education enables healthcare students to develop as leaders and entrepreneurs," says David Ridley, director of Fuqua's Health Sector Management program. "At the same time, healthcare students make the business school better by their concern for people and understanding of policy." Administrators at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia haven't noticed a spike in applications from physicians, but the impending implementation of the Affordable Care Act has been reflected in some program content, says June Kinney, associate director and lecturer in Wharton's Health Care Management program. "We're always evolving our content depending on what's going on in the marketplace, and certainly Obamacare has unleashed a huge number of changes in emphasis," says Kinney. "For instance, there's more emphasis on outcome metrics and data analytics. A lot of providers and payers have always had a lot of data— they just didn't always use it or organize around it. Now there are clearer incentives for them to do that." She continues, "Even a trend like medical tourism relies on information and incentives. If a heart hospital has an amazing record and it offers a set package to do a heart bypass, that could bring pressure to bear on the marketplace." The heavier emphasis on technology also affects some of the internships that students seek out, she notes, with more of them looking at techrelated fields such as mobile apps and healthcare IT. Fuqua's Ridley believes that changes in the healthcare sector motivate medical personnel to pursue MBAs for one of three reasons: They want to understand how to lead change within an established organization or start their own entrepreneurial organization; they want to stay in the sector, but they want to stop practicing medicine; or they want to be part of the exciting changes in the field and learn to make a difference in the health of the population. Training for Impact THE JAMES LEE SORENSON Global Impact Investing Center (SGII Center) at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business in Salt Lake City has announced results from its partnership with the Sorenson Impact Foundation (SIF), which facilitated five early-stage investments totaling approximately US$2 million. The SGII Center, created in January 2013, trains students to produce sustainable social impact by working with social enterprises, corporations, impact funds, and private family foundations. Student teams vetted and structured this year's impact investments, sometimes traveling to locations around the world to help prime businesses for a capital infusion. Their selections included three companies based in India: a pay-as-you-go solar financing company, a financing company for microenterprises, and an affordable housing construction company. Student teams also selected a Kenya-based consumer catalog company and a fair-trade apparel manufacturing company with offices in Liberia and Ghana. BizEd November/December 2013 11

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