The Pulse - Fall 2011

In July 1999, I met a person who would change not only my life, but also the lives of hundreds of Carlson School students. If our impact as professionals can be measured in the number of lives we enhance and improve, MILI’s Associate Director Ruth Taylor can rest assured of her champion status.

It is with profound gratitude and humility that I acknowledge Taylor’s retirement from the University of Minnesota. Our time at the Carlson school started almost on the same day, twelve years ago. While I was just weeks fresh to Minnesota from the East Coast, Taylor had just left a great legacy at the Park Nicollet Research Foundation and was eager for new opportunities. Within just over a year, our joint endeavors yielded my first article in the journal Health Affairs and the launch of the very successful Health Information Technology Analysis Institute. Taylor’s work coordinating Carlson’s Center for the Study of Healthcare Management in those years gave the Carlson School a venue for scholarly exchange through seminars, publications, and grant-sponsored research. It also provided the research component template for MILI when it was created in 2005 with Ruth serving as the Founding Associate Director.

Just over six years ago, neither of us imagined the scale of the student demand for MILI’s specialization or the level of community engagement we’d see (for instance, UnitedHealth Group Foundation’s recent gift, remains the largest donation to any University program to date). In these formative years, Taylor has expertly managed the day to day operations of MILI’s signature programs including the Health Actuarial Scholarship program, the Medical Valuation Laboratory, and the Pulse newsletter Exchange publications. She has been the steward of millions of dollars of contracts, grants, and donations for the school and our program as well as coordinated MILI’s fast-approaching hosting of the nearly thousand guests at the American Society for Health Economics biennial meeting in 2012.

Taylor’s excellence was rewarded this Spring by the Carlson School when she won the school-wide Best Staff member award for bringing the actuarial scholars program from bullet points to more than 30 undergraduate scholarships awarded within 18 months. I speak for myself - and hundreds of others - in appreciating how my life has been improved by crossing and, for a time, walking the same path as Ruth Taylor. We are honored by her outstanding performance, generosity of spirit, and stewardship, and we wish her the best as she takes on new challenges in her uniquely accomplished life.

Pellere

Students in the Medical Industry Valuation Laboratory course (MILI 6995) will soon be evaluating medical technology innovations and new products from China’s emerging healthcare market. This exciting addition to the curriculum comes courtesy from a memorandum of understanding that Stephen Parente signed this summer, partnering the Carlson School of Management with the School of Medical Instruments and Food Engineering at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST).

The collaboration was proposed by Carlson student Ge Yan (’11 MBA), who then facilitated negotiation as the two schools carved out our venture. As Yan pointed out, the Chinese medical industry is the single hottest international market, expected to experience double-digit growth for the next five years. And as these opportunities open up, more and more American companies will look to penetrate the Chinese market. Future leaders will need both international and intercultural experience to shape the medical industry.

As participants in a cross-cultural team, MILI’s valuation lab students will develop advanced communication and collaboration skills as they gain exposure to global technology innovations, venture firms, and inventors. Applying their professional expertise across cultures, industries, and cutting-edge markets in real time, students on both ends of this partnership will develop a deeper understanding of international business and a long-lasting global network of friends and colleagues.

For more information on the Medical Industry Valuation Laboratory, visit http://www.csom.umn.edu/news/03/11/11/The-Medical-Industry-Valuation-Lab.aspx

Learning, but Forgetting

The Wharton School’s Guy David, Assistant Professor of Health Care Management, visited the Carlson School of Management recently to present his paper, “On the Determinants of Organizational Forgetting.” David, who is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, focused on how his work on organizational learning has also identified the potential channels through which organizations forget.

Working with Dr. Tanguy Brachet of Charles Rivers Associates and a team of researchers, David developed a framework for distinguishing the effects of labor turnover from those of human capital depreciation on organizational forgetting. Then, he applied the framework to a previously untapped dataset: the trauma-related ambulance runs of Mississippi emergency medical services companies from 1991-2005. As it turns out, skill decay is twice as damaging to organizational knowledge as turnover. Employees may come and go, but it’s the ones who stay and get rusty that seem to really dilute organizational knowledge.

For a copy of David’s paper, please visit http://www.csom.umn.edu/medical-industry-leadership-institute/industry-events.aspx

Healthy Competition

In 2006, the English government introduced a policy to promote hospital competition, and Carol Propper took notice. This spring, Propper presented her provocatively-titled seminar, “Death by Market Power: Reform, Competition, and Patient Outcomes in the National Health Service” at the Carlson School.

Propper, Chair in Economics, Imperial College Business School and Professor of the Economics of Public Policy at the University of Bristol, used a large dataset comprised of approximately 68,000 discharges per year from 162 hospitals in the U.K. since the 2006 policy took effect. Under the new rules, prices were set centrally and patients were given information on the quality and timeliness of care at different locations, and then allowed to choose where they would like to receive their care. As Propper explained to her Minnesota audience, those patients who had been discharged from hospitals in markets with more feasible competition were treated at the same cost as other patients, but were released more quickly and were less likely to die.

A leading researcher of the U.K.’s healthcare market, Propper is also a founding member of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation at Bristol University and a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

FDA Regulations and the Medical Industry

In May, MILI and the Carlson School’s Center for International Business Education and Research co-hosted “Benefits and Burdens of FDA Regulations on Global Medical Technology Markets.” The event offered insights into challenges facing the medical technology market, including the evolving roles of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other global governmental agencies.

Keynote speaker Dr. Susan Alpert, the retired Senior Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs at Minnesota-based Medtronic, said, “Taking ideas and turning them into viable - and, by the way, valuable - products, that is a skill set that the U.S. industry excels in. That is why so much of the technology that actually is impacting the entire world comes out of the U.S. medical technology industry...That is beginning to change.”

Alpert was joined by panelists representing different areas of the medical industry:

• John J. Alexander, President, Business Development Advisors; Founder and Chairman, Twin Cities Angels
• Thomas Gunderson, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Piper Jaffray & Co.
• Ralph Hall, Counsel, Baker & Daniels; Distinguished Professor & Practitioner, University of Minnesota Law School
• Richard Manning, Executive Director, Global Public Policy, Merck & Co., Inc.
• Simon Stevens, Executive VP, UnitedHealth Group; President, Global Health, UnitedHealth Group; Chairman, UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform

To listen to the keynote or panel discussion from this event, visit http://www.csom.umn.edu/medical-industry-leadership-institute/industry-events.aspx

At the second in the Actuarial Seminar Series, sponsored by the UnitedHealth Group Actuarial Scholarship Program in March 2011, Dr. Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute, the Panel of Health Advisers for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission presented “Health Reform, Budget Scoring, and Fiscal Reality: What Would Repeal Do?” U.S. health care reform has been a contentious topic, and Antos looked at the nearly two dozen lawsuits filed to challenge the legality of the Affordable Care Act, along with the repeal measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2011. In his presentation, Antos outlined the $230 billion the CBO has estimated will be added to the federal deficit if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and asked, Why do CBO estimates play such a central role in our health reform debates? How realistic are they? And how will the nation’s finances actually fare if the legislation moves forward?

The next Actuarial Seminar will feature John Stenson, Chief Actuary and Senior Vice President, Kaiser Permanente, on October 11. For more information on the series or for a copy of Antos’s seminar presentation, please visit http://www.csom.umn.edu/medical-industry-leadership-institute/united-scholarship.aspx

Amy H. Moore (’12 MBA) discovered her love of brain research as an undergraduate in Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University, and continued directly to the University of California Los Angeles, where she earned her PhD in neuroscience. After 10 years studying neuroinflammation and teaching undergraduate biology, Moore entered the Carlson School’s Full-Time MBA program in 2010, hoping to extend her skill set to foster relationships between academia and the medical industry.

In her first year here, Moore organized MBA student poster presentations at the 9th Annual Life Science Alley Conference and Expo, fulfilling an objective set in motion by MILI alum Stephan Dunning (’10 MBA). Now she hopes to reinforce the school’s Life Science Alley relationship as the Vice President of External Relations for the MILI Student Association (MILIsa), which provides MBA students with direct interaction with the vibrant medical device, healthcare management, academic, and biobusiness communities in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Moore is also a student associate at the University of Minnesota’s Office for Technology Commercialization and a consultant with Carlson Ventures Enterprise.

Moore just completed a summer internship with the Experienced Commercialization Leadership Program (ECLDP) at Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. On the Global Strategic Marketing team, she evaluated preclinical scientific data, clinical trial results, competitor portfolios, and cross-sector development to recommend business opportunities and marketing strategy within a new disease area. This fall, she returns to the Carlson School, eager to apply her experience in translating basic research to therapeutic application in the MILI Valuation Laboratory course and beyond.

Moore lives with her husband and two children in Northfield, MN.

In their 2005 Harvard Business Review piece, “How Business Schools Lost Their Way,” Warren G. Bennis and James O’Toole offer a strong critique of business school practices and curricula. They observe, “Too focused on ‘scientific’ research, business schools are hiring professors with limited real-world experience and graduating students who are ill equipped to wrangle with complex, unquantifiable issues - in other words, the stuff of management.”

Well before this critique, the Carlson School of Management was known for pushing the bounds of experiential learning. Having pioneered class field projects in the 1970s and launched its enterprise program in the 1990s, the Carlson School is a nationally recognized leader in rigorous, professionally-led immersion programs. And the Carlson Consulting Enterprise (CCE) is a great example of how the Carlson School has become a nationally-recognized leader in experiential learning - and an excellent exception to Bennis and O’Toole’s hand-wringing. The CCE program focuses on building its MBA and undergraduate students’ general management skills in hands-on, project-based experiences. Client projects ranging from logistics network design to market entry strategy force students to work in cross-functional teams and be directly accountable to clients (who often pay significant fees for this top-notch consulting service).

The experience students receive in CCE is unusually intensive. MBAs engage for three semesters and commit an average of 15 hours per week to their client work. Engagements in the CCE are student-led and professionally directed with weekly team meetings and coaching from Phil Miller, the CCE Professional Director. The intimacy of the working teams and the faculty’s ability to see the work proceed week by week allows for tailored feedback, instruction, and mentoring.

CCE students are prepared for semester-long engagements through coursework and active mentoring and coaching. The class portion covers problem definition, research design, stakeholder management, modeling, presentation skills, and a variety of other general management topics. The content aims to prepare students for their client engagements, but, more important, for their growth as effective professionals. As Kyle James (’09 MBA) puts it, “The Consulting Enterprise gives you a leg up on your ability to interview clients and obtain data,” two of the key skills we develop in our students. Reflecting the personal awareness that we believe comes from doing, Kian Glenn (’09 BSB) reflects, “An important thing to figure out is how to find a job that will align with my passions. Building a network through the CCE and working with Phil [Miller, the professional director] helped me figure out what is important to me.”

Although the CCE works with clients from all industries, the healthcare field is of particular interest to our students and the CCE professional advisory board. Recent clients have included Boston Scientific, Kurt Salmon, Mayo Clinic, McKesson, Medtronic, United Healthcare, and the University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy. Our students’ success shows - upon graduation, many go on to placements in the healthcare industry.

More information can be found online at http://www.csom.umn.edu/consulting/index.aspx

Last January, the Medical Industry Leadership Institute Student Association (MILIsa) hosted its third annual Medtronic Interdisciplinary Health Care Case Competition (MEDIHCC). The competition, in which students apply their skills to a real case challenge presented by a medical device industry leader, brought together students from various colleges at the University, including the School of Public Health, the Medical School, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the College of Science & Engineering, the College of Biological Sciences, and the Carlson School of Management.

Medtronic, which sponsored the event, provided the case as well as generous cash prizes. Teams worked for 36 hours to develop recommendations that will help the company best formulate a strategy, then presented to industry judges and Medtronic representatives in two rounds. Round one took place at the Carlson School, but in round two, teams traveled to Medtronic where “Team Canarinho” took first place. Team Canarinho included:

• Archana Balasubramanyam, MBA
• Adrian Cook, MBA
• Patrick Siegling, MHA/MBA
• Zeeshan Syedain, BME
• Ramakrishna Talasila, MBA
• Michael Varpness, MBA

Siegling (’13 MHA/MBA) tells us, "MEDIHCC provided students a great learning experience by demonstrating how professionals across several disciplines can come together to develop product strategies and recommendations that benefit not only the Medtronic's bottom line, but also the well-being of society.”

MEDIHCC is developed and run by MILIsa student leaders and Medtronic representatives. MILIsa is grateful for the support of Medtronic’s Carlson School alumni Kevin Blalock, Will Au Yeung, and Amaza Reitmeier in planning its 2010-2011 event. Looking ahead, MILIsa is excited to announce that the 4th Annual MEDIHCC is scheduled for December 1-3, 2011. For more information, contact Kristopher Carver (’12 MBA) at carv0047@umn.edu.

As fall semester gets under way, MILIsa is already planning for our big annual events, the LifeScience Alley poster session and the Medtronic Interdisciplinary Healthcare Case Competition.

We are also looking to team up with other clubs within the University to run cross-functional events to help students discover roles in the healthcare industry. What, for instance, is it like to work in marketing at a medical device company? What role does financial analysis play in health insurance? What solutions do healthcare consultants provide for hospitals? As the year progresses, we will look at drilling down a bit deeper into those roles with some group tours at places like the Visible Heart Lab and a hospital.

One other goal for the 2011-2012 year is to leverage our resources within the University and expand our membership base. We have a lot of representation from other schools this year and are looking forward to designing events for many disciplines. We continue to seek out representatives from other schools to help further the reach of MILI throughout the University.

Of course, it isn’t all about work! MILIsa’s planning includes a number of fun activities like happy hours, a lunch speaker series, and even a healthcare-related charity event. Be on the lookout for these opportunities.

Finally, I’d like to welcome our 2011-2012 MILIsa board:

• President: Dan Gilbertson
• VP External Relations/LSA: Amy Moore
• VP MEDIHCC: Kris Carver
• VP Technology: Chris Ghere, Ge Yan
• VP Finance: Aditya Dagaonkar
• VP Internal Relations: Jeong Ha Hwang
• VP Communication: Roman Rosankranz
• VP Charity: James Colbenson
• Medical School Reps: Rob Fraser, Andrew Nguyen
• MHA/MBA Rep: Avantika Chaudhary
• Public Health Reps: Vicky Bass, Nancy Mourad
• Part-time MBA Reps: Chris Balck, Margot LeClair, Justin Paur
• Master of Business Taxation Rep: Andy Lechner

Congratulations Graduates!

MILI would like to congratulate all 2011 Carlson School of Management graduates, with special recognition for those MBA candidates who earned a MILI specialization. We’re proud to announce that this year’s graduates have gone on to positions in a variety of organizations, including Medtronic, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Hartfiel Automation, 3M, VA Medical Center, Median Technologies, Beckman Coulter, Boston Scientific, Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Epic, Ecolab, OptumInsight Life Sciences, Otto Bock Healthcare, and Minnetronix.

2011 graduates who earned their MILI specialization are:

• Ruchika Aggarwal
• Archana Balasubramanyam
• Rachel Brucker
• Roy Bryan
• Brink Ciferri
• Adrian Cook
• Eric Geurkink
• Michael Ingebrand
• Erick Johnson
• Jessi Johnson
• Todd Johnson
• Richard Kronstad
• Stephanie Lindberg
• Ramesh Mannamkunnath
• Elizabeth Merkel
• Laura Patrick
• Leah Pentz
• Ryan Rensvold
• Michelle Sotak
• Kimberly Soverign
• Matthew Stoll
• Nicholas Wessinger
• Gina Wildey

Michael Finch, who teaches MILI’s Healthcare Marketplace course and is an instructor in its Medical Industry Valuation Laboratory, is right at home at the University of Minnesota. In fact, he received his PhD in sociology here on the West Bank and was on the faculty of the Division of Health Services Research and Policy for 14 years. Now, along with teaching in the Carlson School, Finch is a faculty affiliate of the School of Public Health.

Finch is most widely known for his work on the cost, quality, and financing of healthcare in the public and private markets. He is nationally recognized as an expert in research methods and evaluation, and has been the principal investigator for over a dozen federally sponsored grants and contracts, including the Heath Care Financing Administration’s National Post Acute Care Project, the Second Generation Social HMO demonstration, the National Institute of Mental Health-funded Youth Development Survey, and the National Inflation Association-funded Evaluation of the Medicaid Demonstration.

Finch has conducted major studies on the effects of surgical volume on outcomes in hospitals, guideline performance on diabetes care, and the cost and financing of end of life care on hospital safety. His latest book explores the role of physician communication in healthcare.

With over 20 years experience in the medical device industry, Brad Slaker ('89 BSME, '07 MBA) knew how to recognize gaps in the pediatric device portfolio. While he's found the technology needed to provide solutions for these unmet pediatric medical needs usually exists, the market opportunities are small. This means that for-profit medical advice companies, wary to engage in projects with risky or non-existent ROIs, have, in large part, avoided pediatric devices. Slaker needed to find a new way to address pediatric needs.

In the fall of 2008, Slaker founded DesignWise Medical (designwisemedical.org), a nonprofit pediatric medical device organization focused on identifying, developing, and delivering solutions for children's unmet medical needs. With limited financial support, Slaker developed a business model that relied on the sustained involvement of pediatric clinicians, parents, sponsors, volunteers, and students.

By effectively harnessing volunteer efforts, DesignWise medical can create pediatric solutions for a fraction of the traditional cost. Including student volunteers in the project development process provides valuable help for Slaker's company, but he hopes to return the favor "By sponsoring projects in a variety of disciplines, we hope to create important learning opportunities for medical, engineering, and business students alike. Our business model allows us to cut costs through volunteer efforts while simultaneously addressing students' need for real-world learning opportunities." To date, more than 200 volunteers have donated more than 22,000 hours of their time working on six pediatric device projects.

Slaker, who is also the CEO of DesignWise Medical, keeps plenty busy building his strong nonprofit organization to continue to help children well into the future. As an engineer, Slaker also works directly on projects development. He tells us, "One of the great pleasures of my role in DesignWise is when I get to work with students. They bring such energy, vitality, and fresh thinking that you don’t often get from the traditional corporate environment."

In total, DesignWise Medical has sponsored 23 student projects at seven universities. Eight projects sponsored have been sponsored at the University of Minnesota in the College of Science and Engineering, the Law School, and the Carlson School of Management. In the fall of 2010, DesignWise Medical sponsored a MILI valuation lab project for one of its two flagship projects, an automated oxygen delivery control system for use within Neonatal Intensive Care Units. Additionally, during a seven-week period this past winter, DesignWise Medical worked with a group of four Carlson MBA volunteers from the Graduate Volunteer Consultants (GVC) organization on a business and marketing strategy plan for its other flagship project, an at-home, non-contacting method of delivering supplemental oxygen to sleeping children. Thanks in part to the invaluable efforts made by the MILI Valuation Lab and GVC team, Slaker is actively pursuing distribution channels for both products and anticipates entering the market sometime in 2012.

MILI was pleased to learn from Affiliate Rahul Koranne, Medical Director of HealthEast Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, that his hospital’s Clinical Alignment and Resource Effectiveness case study has been featured on the prominent website Sg2: Health Care Intelligence. Koranne writes, “This is a point of pride for us, and I wanted to share it with you,” explaining that the case “showcases our results and what a long-term acute care hospital can add to the system of care.” To read more about how hospitals like Bethesda, a safety-net care facility for ICU patients with often complex, critical cases, have become an integral part of the care continuum, visit sg2.com

New Opportunities to Get Involved as a MILI Affiliate

MILI has been churning out top performing MBA graduates with a Medical Industry Specialization since 2007. In that time, it has built its registry of MILI graduates and other industry supporters to well over 100 professionals representing device manufacturers, insurers/payers, care deliverers, health industry investors, research institutions, pharma companies, and more. Now, we’ve revamped the MILI Affiliate program to help give back to the important and growing foundation of loyal supporters.

We’re taking steps to offer new programs and perks to the MILI Affiliate program. Among these new developing programs is the MILI Affiliate Roundtable: a small, group event, guided by a knowledgeable facilitator and designed to foster meaningful discussion among peers around relevant medical industry topics. The first three engaging sessions focused on elements of the recent Health Care Reform Act, FDA regulation and the medical industry, and other ever-evolving aspects of our industry.

Generous Affiliates have also opened their doors to MILI by way of hosting a site visit. In one case, David Edgerton arranged for an event at the National Marrow Donor Program offices in Northeast Minneapolis. The NMDP site visit included C-level speakers describing their organization and some of important work it does to facilitate bone marrow transplantation throughout the United States. This was truly a special event, and more site visits like it are in the works! We’ll be sure to keep you informed of these opportunities as they develop.

Our Affiliate group has now gained enough momentum to create a structure for its sustained, long-term growth. To that end, MILI has created an Affiliate Board, comprised of seven Affiliates who will represent the group's interests and develop programming and other offerings accordingly. MILI thanks the following Affiliates for their dedication to the success of the program by serving on the Affiliate Board.

• Stephan Dunning, Chronic Disease Research Group, Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation
• Archana Balasubramanyam, Medtronic
• David Edgerton, National Marrow Donor Program
• Tushar Gupta, Sanguine International
• Rahul Koranne, HealthEast Bethesda Hospital
• Creighton Long, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota
• Eric Schaefer, Vita Strategic Consulting LLC

Of course, MILI always welcomes new Institute Affiliates from the medical industry community. Affiliates are invited to private events, gain access to the school’s faculty research and lifelong learning programs, and become part of a network of industry leaders who share skills and knowledge across organizations. We believe that our Affiliate network’s new avenues for collaboration, research, and education will continue to push improvement and innovation within the medical industry. Membership applications and more information can be found online at: http://www.csom.umn.edu/medical-industry-leadership-institute/mili-affiliates.aspx

Consider Making a Gift to MILI

Alumni and friends of the Carlson School support the mission of both the school and MILI in many ways - by mentoring students, volunteering time with faculty and staff, and by contributing financially. The Carlson School relies on more than 3,000 benefactors annually.

You can also support MILI directly with your financial contribution. Your support positively impacts the success and growth of the Institute. These are the areas in which gifts are most needed:

• Program Support Fund (# 5295): General operating costs. Contributions provide the necessary flexible funds to support daily operations needed to maintain key initiatives.
• Research Support Fund (#3609): General research expenses. Contributions provide funds to further MILI’s research portfolio.
• MILI Discovery Fund (#6087): Experiential learning support of the Medical Industry Valuation Laboratory course. Contributions provide funds for initiatives and educational experiences that facilitate market valuations of new innovations for the medical industry and enhance the potential to bring new technologies to market.
• Carl N. Platou Leadership Competition Fund (#6357): Contributions help continue the competition established to recognize the leadership skills and innovative thinking of an elite group of students in the spirit of Carl N. Platou.