I just finished teaching in the Health Care Policy 360 program and, as usual, I feel invigorated.
The four-day course explains the real-world impact of emerging health trends to senior level executives in health care industries. It’s a joint venture between the Quality Institute and the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.
I love teaching these executives, who are on the front lines of our rapidly changing world of health care. These executives provide insight into how health care policy plays out every day in the real world, and they challenge me with questions and observations that drill down into health care rules and regulations.
We worked with Rutgers to develop this non-partisan health care policy immersion course after a national pharmaceutical company realized that leaders throughout the company could benefit from a high-level training course on how health reform impacts market access, strategy and business success. The course now includes a dozen world-class faculty members who understand the Affordable Care Act, heath exchanges, electronic health records, Accountable Care Organizations, patient-centered medical homes, value-based purchasing and on … and on.
Health care policy affects the health care marketplace, and no company in a range of industries —from pharmaceuticals, to medical devices, to insurance—will succeed without deep understanding of the swiftly evolving health care landscape.
In the course, we talk about what has happened … and what’s ahead. The program is valuable to a range of people within a health care related company, from sales and service, to marketing and communications, to strategic planning.
For me, as a faculty member and someone who helped create the program, teaching provides a window into the “nitty gritty” business of delivering health care to Americans. The executives are not afraid to challenge me —trust me on this. The exchanges are robust and informative as marketing directors, senior financial analysts, technology directors and other high level executives discuss health care.
The health policy wonk in me thrives on the energy. And after eight to 10 sessions, and more than 250 participants, the evaluations have been so positive that we are expanding to offer the course to hospitals, groups of providers, and insurers. Health Care Policy 360 keeps changing as health care keeps changing. Going forward change will be our only constant.