“Physician administrators are not trained during their medical careers to handle employees; they’re trained to handle disease,” says Rocky Singh, MD, MBA’15.
When he enrolled in the Indiana University Kelley School of Business Physician MBA Program, Dr. Singh wanted to be better equipped to answer questions about the regulatory, financial or business aspects of running a hospital. Ultimately, he says lessons in leadership played the biggest role. While physicians are experts on the clinical aspects of healthcare, Dr. Singh says concepts like fiscal responsibility and how to motivate employees are often foreign to them because they’ve not been trained for a management role.
“To become a good supervisor, you have to understand yourself, your leadership style, how you operate and where your own blind spots are,” he says. “The Physician MBA Program gives you more perspective about the gaps in your repertoire to identify what are you missing. Are you the type who subscribes to servant leadership? You may have blind spots in accountability as you try to do good for others. Is that really helping your team? That’s what the Kelley MBA helps you identify.”
Shortly after earning his MBA, Dr. Singh was promoted from regional medical director to vice president and chief medical officer. Kelley faculty recognized Dr. Singh’s continued growth as a physician leader, his contributions to the healthcare community and his advocacy mentoring other physicians’ development by selecting him for the 2020 Anthony D. Cox Leadership and Impact Award.
As a member of the first Physician MBA cohort when it launched in 2013, Dr. Singh continues to build upon what he learned by applying business principles to guide his team in finding and measuring their own successes.
“I’m constantly asking: ‘What are the metrics we’re measuring? What does success look like to you? What are the gaps that need to be closed to be successful?’” he says. “I lean on those leadership tools that the Kelley School provided.”
As a member of the first Physician MBA cohort when it launched in 2013, Dr. Singh continues to build upon what he learned by applying business principles to guide his team in finding and measuring their own successes.
Within his leadership toolkit, Dr. Singh says the lessons on process improvement have been particularly helpful as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Indiana. Dr. Singh is the chief medical officer for the Indiana University Health Indianapolis Suburban Region, leading IU Health North, West, Saxony and Tipton hospitals.
“Some of our facilities had more COVID patients than others, and obviously, there are a finite number of beds and staff,” he explains. “One of the process improvement exercises we did in the Physician MBA involved combining resources from multiple, small facilities and redistributing them in the best way to meet demand. The economics courses covered the principles of supply and demand and how they intersect in healthcare.”
Dr. Singh’s team took inventory of all the ventilators and ICU beds across the 17-hospital system and measured it against the demand.
“We then reallocated some of the ventilators and staff to facilities that were treating more COVID patients,” he says. “We were able to figure out how to redistribute all that inventory to support the facilities that needed it most. The principles you learn in the Physician MBA for managing your resources better go a long way in your practical work.”
The principles you learn in the Physician MBA for managing your resources better go a long way in your practical work.”
One step Dr. Singh has taken to maintain quality and safety is to apply principles from the Physician MBA Program, such as using root cause analysis and Lean principles to standardize the work.
“The key to long-term success is understanding the root cause of a problem and what’s driving it in order to come up with solutions. These are tools you can apply to any situation: Why do you have C. diff at your hospital? You start examining where it’s coming from: Is there infection, a testing issue or are we testing early enough?” he says. “In the Physician MBA, we completed a physician communication project that used root cause analysis. Going through the exercise of finding your current state, future state and determining what needs to happen to go from current to future provides you with a durable solution.”
Physicians are the individuals best suited to take more responsibility running hospitals in the future because they do it on a daily basis, says Dr. Singh. Through ongoing education like the Physician MBA Program, he feels that physicians can become empowered and engaged to shape the future of healthcare.
“Physicians know this field better than anyone else. Some of my fellow alumni have gone into policy work to help lawmakers better understand medicine. We need more physician leaders to step up and lead the U.S. in remaining a leader in medicine,” he says. “Never assume that you’re the smartest person in the room. If you think you are, you’re in the wrong room. You should be in a place where you can always continue to learn and grow.”
We need more physician leaders to step up and lead the U.S. in remaining a leader in medicine.”
Dr. Singh says the Physician MBA Program expanded his understanding of healthcare by revealing how one area of a hospital relates to the entire system. The continuing education offered by alumni opportunities at the Kelley School also allows him to continue living his motto: never stop learning.
“The Physician MBA Program was life changing for me. I was always focused on how to treat my patients, and I didn’t understand how my area of emergency medicine impacted the rest of the system – in volume, where the referrals lead, how to handle cases in a more organized manner – you often don’t know beyond your own piece of the puzzle,” he says. “Learning the patient journey and understanding the business of medicine from the inside out has been – and will remain – useful for years to come.”
Leave a Reply