HARVARD'S BUSINESS AND MEDICAL SCHOOLS HOST MD/MBA SPEAKER EVENT

WellPoint Founding Chairman and CEO Leonard Schaeffer Delivers Annual Address

Leonard Schaeffer at HBS
Photo: Stuart Cahill

BOSTON - “In healthcare, change is really the only constant,” said Leonard D. Schaeffer, founding Chairman and CEO of WellPoint Health Networks, Inc., during a recent visit to the Harvard Business School (HBS) campus. Schaeffer’s presentation, titled “Leadership, Management, and America’s Dysfunctional Healthcare System,” was part of an annual event in celebration of Harvard University’s joint MD/MBA degree, a five-year program specially designed to foster intellectual integration of the medical and management disciplines by combining the curricula of both Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School (HMS).

Schaeffer discussed the challenges facing the U.S. healthcare system before an audience of MD/MBA students and other members of the HBS and Harvard Medical School communities, including Professor W. Carl Kester, Harvard Business School’s Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs, and Barbara McNeil, HMS Professor and Head of the Department of Health Care Policy. Schaeffer focused on lessons learned during his 12 years at WellPoint, the largest health insurance company in the U.S.; the effect of management issues on physicians and the entire healthcare system; and what must happen before the United States can claim a functioning healthcare industry.

According to Schaeffer, the role of physician as a manager, leader, and team player is essential to the healthy future of the industry, but this is not the way it is in the current environment. Rather, physicians are taught to be individual contributors who defend their autonomy and personal success rate as opposed to the success of the healthcare system as a whole. Therefore, he argues, “the role and skills required of physicians must be rethought” to include training in leadership, management, and business processes – a suggestion that resonated with those students in the audience pursuing their Harvard MD/MBA joint degree.

Accountability is also necessary for the health of the system. But at the present time, Schaeffer continued, there are no incentives to coordinate care across providers and service settings. Volume is rewarded rather than quality of care, and “physicians have little responsibility for overall hospital performance,” he said.

At the end of his presentation, Schaeffer left his audience with two overarching questions: “How do we make the necessary changes before the country goes broke? Who should lead and manage the healthcare system?” To answer these questions, Schaeffer looks to a new breed of physicians who understand both the patient and the healthcare system as a whole.

The Harvard MD/MBA program aims to develop outstanding physician leaders who will go on to hold positions of influence and thus contribute substantially to the health and well-being of individuals and society. Students seeking to participate in the program must apply to both Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School simultaneously. The select group admitted to both institutions typically spends their first three years at HMS, completing preclinical and clinical requirements, along with courses in healthcare policy and management and a four- to eight-week management internship in the summer following the first year. The fourth year is at HBS, where they complete the requirements of the first-year MBA core curriculum. In the fifth and final year, they take electives at both HMS and HBS in a sequence determined by each student.

The MD/MBA program is one of Harvard University’s portfolio of joint degree programs, including those that HMS conducts with the Harvard School of Public Health and the John F. Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and that HBS does with Harvard Law School.

Additional information about the MD/MBA program can be found here:
http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academics/mdmba.html

About Harvard Business School
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School (www.hbs.edu) is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 200 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 40 Executive Education programs. For almost a century, HBS faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching to educate leaders who have shaped the practice of business around the globe.

About Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (http://hms.harvard.edu) has nearly 8,000 full-time faculty working in eight academic departments based at the School's Boston quadrangle or in one of 47 academic departments at 18 Harvard teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those Harvard hospitals and research institutions include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, the CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Mental Health Center, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.