At a certain point in their careers, many physicians want to make an impact on healthcare greater than the singular patient sitting in front of them in the exam room. To lead this kind of change in medicine, physicians like David Hains, MD, MBA’23, recognized the need for greater business acumen and enrolled in the Physician MBA Program at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.
In fact, Dr. Hains had already put the degree to use during in his first year of the program. He worked on a project to better define the financials of his work as the division chief of pediatric nephrology at Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health and the Byron P. & Frances D. Hollett Professor of Pediatric Nephrology at IU School of Medicine, his alma mater.
“If I see a patient in clinic and order labs or send the patient to surgery, the patient’s visit to the clinic is the only item that goes on the books for pediatric nephrology. That credit is small, but our overall value as a program is big,” said Dr. Hains. He worked with Amrou Awaysheh, associate professor of operations management at the Kelley School, to examine the value a physician generates in different areas of the healthcare system. They sought to better capture the downstream revenue physicians create when interacting in a complex medical environment, like a tertiary pediatric care center.
“We can advocate for our profession on a high level by using real numbers and producing actual financial data that support our requests to invest in expansions of programs like dialysis and transplant, which have a huge financial footprint in multiple silos,” said Dr. Hains. “We can use financial analytics to determine what these ideas really cost and what they actually generate, so we can continue growing those programs.”
Dr. Hains also worked with Awaysheh on a project to enhance statewide access and patient care for children in Indiana that could triple revenues with one small investment. They assessed the return on investment and a program expansion.
“We’ve taken a systematic look at the necessary investment and how its projected return could more than double throughput in our ambulatory blood pressure monitoring program,” Dr. Hains said. “We’ve completed projections which would result in significant enhancements in patient access as well as patient care by deploying this technology across the entire state.”
As Dr. Hains’ clinical leadership responsibilities grew over time, he recognized a need to understand the business aspects of healthcare. He was promoted to division chief in 2017 and noticed an ongoing need for more efficient use of limited healthcare resources, ranging from supply lines to staff and providers. Earning an MBA helped him understand how to manage those resources better to get the most out of them. He’s found the lessons at the Kelley School to be useful in many ways.
“The most important part is this education is applicable to lots of different areas in medicine,” Dr. Hains said. “The business of medicine has become clearer to me over the past year, and I’m sure it will continue to come into focus. The MBA just opens up so many career possibilities to expand our reach as physicians caring for patients.”
Dr. Hains says he also evolved as a leader through the course of the Physician MBA Program. Already an experienced leader who’s underwent leadership development work, Dr. Hains says the courses in the MBA program enhanced his capabilities significantly. Having earned the Evans Fellowship in Healthcare Leadership to attend the Kelley School, Dr. Hains added new facets of leadership.
“As part of the Evans Fellowship, I have quarterly meetings with leaders throughout the IU Health system, with the dean of the IU School of Medicine regularly, and with the president of IU Health Physicians,” he said. “It has opened up opportunities to meet with all these leaders to hear about their leadership journeys and what works or doesn’t work from their perspective as a leader. It really exposes me to high-yield areas to focus on and where the wind’s blowing in medicine.”
By combining his medical expertise and leadership capabilities with a strong understanding of the business of medicine gained through the Physician MBA Program, Dr. Hains bridged the gap that physicians often span between the clinical and administration sides of healthcare.
“I understand the language of business a lot better, the financial aspects of our impact, and how they influence our lives. It’s been great to be able to effectively read and assess income statements and to identify rationally and financially considerate ways to propose and evaluate growth,” Dr. Hains said. “It’s not enough to say that I think we need these things, but now I can produce the actual metrics that trigger the decision to add a nurse, physician, or nurse practitioner. It’s given me better tools to objectively advocate and assess the healthcare landscape overall.”
The new skills also translated to Dr. Hains’ academic responsibilities. Certainly, he can now run projections and financial forecasts for his lab better than he could before the MBA program, but it’s the leadership skills that he has found most useful in research.
“I lead a group of academic physicians who aren’t in private practice because they want to have another dimension of their career outside of the clinic. These skills allow me to better frame and create an assessment for leadership as well as a rationale and justification for investing in revenue-generating opportunities that lie beyond clinical patient care,” he said.
Dr. Hains says the greatest takeaway from the Kelley MBA was the comprehensive view of medicine through a non-physician, business lens. From the history of the business of medicine to healthcare operations and marketing, Dr. Hains says he gained a better understanding of the business of his work and how his patients move through the system.
“All those lessons at the Kelley School look at healthcare from a monetary standpoint, a time standpoint, a team member standpoint, and a resource utilization standpoint – it covers everything,” Dr. Hains said. “It’s a very comprehensive view that goes far beyond me as a doctor and how I interact with a patient. It’s everything behind the scenes that allows me to do that. It’s been extremely beneficial to look at everything from these perspectives to see the whole.”
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