Schulich’s New Master of Health Industry Administration Degree: Developing Tomorrow’s Health Care Leaders
Schulich has been developing health industry leaders for the past two decades through a number of programs, including the health industry specialization in our MBA program, through innovative executive development programs such as our Mini-MBA for Physicians and, more recently, through the launch of our new Master of Health Industry Administration program.
The one-year, highly applied professional Master’s program integrates leadership development with a unique focus on strategic thinking, systems design, and value creation.
The school’s Master of Health Industry Administration has been designed to address the pressing needs of today’s health sector – a sector that’s facing unprecedented changes driven by the emergence and adoption of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and data analytics, as well as the rise of virtual care, new delivery models, resource constraints and changing demographics.
In this month’s column, program director Amin Mawani provides an up-close look at some of the best practices emerging to tackle these health sector challenges, and also shows how our unique program is relying on practitioners to provide real-world insights.
The health sector undeniably needs leaders and strategic thinkers to help it navigate the rapid transformation taking place. Schulich’s Master of Health Industry Administration has been specifically created – with vital input from the healthcare industry – to help produce those future leaders and champions of change.
Best,
Detlev Zwick, PhD
Dean, Tanna H. Schulich Chair in Digital Marketing Strategy
Schulich School of Business
Schulich’s New Master of Health Industry Administration Degree: Developing Tomorrow’s Health Care Leaders
Launched in September 2023, Schulich’s new Master of Health Industry Administration (MIHA) degree is one of the first of its kind in Canada.
In contrast to other Master’s health degrees in Canada that are focused solely on the public healthcare sector, Schulich’s MHIA focuses on the entire healthcare industry – both private and public – offering a broad health industry-based coursework program.
The MHIA develops a multi-stakeholder perspective by illustrating how innovations in one sector (such as pharma) can lead to better outcomes or lower costs in another sector, such as acute-care hospitals. The program was designed with consultations from employer groups in the broad healthcare industry and includes an experiential learning consulting project. Instructors are drawn from the business school, the health faculty and industry leaders to prepare students for managerial roles in all sectors of the healthcare industry.
In conjunction with the Krembil Centre for Health Management and Leadership, Schulich developed this new, highly applied 12-month professional program in response to the anticipated growth in healthcare industry jobs. Influential publications point to healthcare management being one of the top five jobs in demand in the years ahead. Accenture Consulting claims that “Every Business will be a Healthcare Business.” Workopolis projects a demand in health industry jobs, while LinkedIn points to higher salaries for healthcare administrators in the U.S.
One of the key benefits of our Master of Health Industry Administration degree is its real-world relevance and strong industry connections. The program continues to attract senior leaders from industry and the public healthcare sector as speakers for our inaugural cohort of 45 students, which is expected to grow to 60 students by Fall 2024. These speakers are a key part of the program’s Integrated Learning Workshops, which offer an overview of strategy and public policy in the healthcare industry.
The Winter Workshop I teach featured guest speaker Barry Rivelis, ICD.D – a Schulich MBA alumnus and currently the President of Vancouver-based PBC Solutions, who talked about the launch of Telus Health in the mid-2000s (when Mr. Rivelis worked as a Senior VP at Telus).
In an intriguing retrospective analysis, Mr. Rivelis described the telecom landscape and financial performance in the 2000s where every major telecom company was looking to invest in subsidiaries that offered vertical integration with the telecom business. Launching into Telus Health via the acquisition of Emergis enabled Telus to integrate mobility, broadband and collaboration to offer Canadians improved access to better healthcare.
Mr. Rivelis explained how Telus Health made patients become a pivotal player in the healthcare journey facilitated by shared electronic records (instead of paper silos); an orchestrated service flow consisting of collaborative and multi-disciplinary teams (rather than sequential and unintegrated teams); a coordinated and patient-centric care journey (instead of a disjointed and episodic journey); and evidence-based decision-making (instead of decision based only on provider experience).
Today, Telus Health is a global healthcare leader providing comprehensive primary and preventive care services and solutions to improve physical and mental wellbeing for employees and their families worldwide. Its network of 100,000 health professionals offer coverage to more than 69 million lives in 160 countries by simplifying access to care and improving the flow of information between care providers, employers, and patients.
On the public healthcare front, our MHIA students heard from Dr. Sacha Bhatia, the Senior Vice President, Population Health and Value-based Health Systems at Ontario Health. This overview lecture formed the foundation for the Quality and Value in Healthcare course taught by Krembil Research Professor, Dr. Abi Sriharan, during this Winter semester.
Dr. Bhatia served as the Chief Medical Innovation Officer at the Women’s College Hospital. In 2013, he founded the Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care and served as its Director until 2019. More recently, Dr. Bhatia received the Goldie Award for Quality and Innovation and the Louise Lemieux Charles Emerging Leader award at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Bhatia discussed how the Covid-19 pandemic stress-tested our healthcare system in Ontario, and how we fared through the crisis. He described the healthcare system in four related components: Acute Care, Primary Care, Long-Term Care and Laboratories. He explained how sound leadership and new legislative powers enabled these different components to cooperate and coordinate their resources. He described how Ontario demonstrated greater teamwork (especially compared to the U.S.) with its Incidence Management Structure that facilitated different parts to work symbiotically.
Ontario managed to achieve the highest 2-dose vaccination rate in the industrialized world thanks to its better-educated population and good social institutions. Like all other provincial governments, Ontario introduced a separate billing code for virtual care – a practice that continues after the brunt of the pandemic ended. Dr. Bhatia explained how the long-term care sector did not perform as well, but that lessons have been learnt for the next pandemic.
Dr. Bhatia also discussed equity concerns when the 25 postal codes with the worst Covid infections were detected. Some societal challenges will only get worse with concerns such as inadequate housing, ageing, and mental health. Dr. Bhatia also discussed current concerns such as staffing challenges in the hospital and Long-Term Care sectors, as well as the need for greater digital integration. He also tied in the role of incentives (explored in greater detail in MHIA courses) in chronic disease management by incentivizing surgeries and prevention in a volume-based funding model such as Quality-Based Procedures.
Students recognized and appreciated the commonalities between the private and public healthcare systems. Both sectors can and do benefit from blurring of the silos, empowering patients, and instituting incentives for quality healthcare.
These are just a few of the ways students in our new MHIA program are engaged in real-world learning opportunities while also gaining on-the-ground exposure to key facets of the healthcare industry.
Amin Mawani
Director, Master of Health Industry Administration