With the Affordable Healthcare Act changing the financial side of medicine, Duke has launched a new program to educate physicians about the business of healthcare.
Earlier this month, the School of Medicine announced the launch of the Business of Health Care Academy. A partnership with physician information platform Medscape, the program is designed to give healthcare professionals a chance to develop their business and leadership skills through online courses taught by Duke professors.
“Healthcare professionals are thrown into roles of leadership without training in the business aspects of healthcare, and yet they are expected to perform," said Ana Quinn, the developmental director of the Business of Healthcare Academy. "We designed this program to provide them with the background that they need to better lead organizations and to confront new healthcare policy changes and the significant financial implications they carry.”
Quinn noted that the courses are designed to provide healthcare professionals with the fundamental knowledge needed to be competitive in today's complex healthcare.
The five courses—each taught by a different member of the Duke faculty—include Effective Leadership for the 21st Century, Strategic Management, Financial Decision Making and Healthcare Policy Studies. The courses are interactive and video-based, and each can be completed at the learner’s pace. If an individual completes all five, he or she is eligible for a Duke-endorsed certificate.
The Academy was developed over four years to address recent changes in the American healthcare environment, Quinn said. Chief among these changes is the 2013 passage of the Affordable Care Act—which led many healthcare professionals to seek a better understanding of medicine's new business environment. Duke created the Academy specifically to address these needs.
"Policy changes and financial concerns became the impetus for creating this program," said Quinn, who also serves as the business manager for the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Quinn noted that as program continues to develop and grow, more courses will be provided.
“The courses were each designed for the busy healthcare professional who doesn’t have the time to earn an MBA,” Quinn said. “The certificate takes a total of 24 hours to complete, but anyone doing the program can work at whatever pace they see fit.”
The Academy is one of several interdisciplinary programs recently launched by Duke Medicine—including the Duke Institute for Health Innovation, which opened in September 2013 after six years of planning and working to secure funds. The concept for the Academy was presented at DIHI's Summit on Transformative Innovation in Healthcare last Fall, shown as an example of an interdisciplinary solution to an issue in medicine.
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