Post by Craig Garthwaite

The future business decision-makers in healthcare will not succeed in a vacuum. The sector is too complex to simply focus on your narrow vertical or expertise and truly create value. True success requires collaboration and partnerships - and we have designed our Deep Dive into Healthcare at Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management to embrace this fact. Over four weekends and multiple cities, we bring together healthcare-focused students across all our Kellogg programs to participate in a series of intensive classes. This starts with a broad course that focuses on how the ecosystem connects, and then allows students to take additional intensive courses that drill deeper into verticals across biotech, pharma, services, value-based care, and analytics. The true magic of the program is the combination of skill sets and perspectives among both the faculty and the students. Our courses are taught by tenure-line faculty working with leading practitioners such as Adam Koppel, Ali Khan, MD, MPP, and Andy Pasternak. We welcome a range of guest speakers to class, including Robert Plenge, Greg Graves, Duncan Reece, Vivek Garg, MD, MBA, and many others. This allows our courses to be neither abstract ivory-tower exercises nor simplistic corporate storytelling. Instead, we provide students with executable frameworks that can be applied immediately across a range of healthcare businesses. Learning is furthered by the unique mixture of students who span from 25 to 50 years of age, and include physicians, payers, pharma, med device, hospital administrators, and more. This creates a vibrant set of discussions where opinions and preconceived notions are pressure-tested until we separate truth from fiction. We quickly move past buzzwords and pablum to understand the true sources of value creation. Outside of the classes, students hear from a range of business leaders at the forefront of healthcare including, Helen Giza, Martha Wofford, Dr. Omar Lateef, Julie Kim, Bruce Culleton, Jim Pursley, and Tassos Gianakakos. Next month, the program moves to Shanghai, where students have the opportunity to learn about that vibrant market from business leaders, including Helen Chen, Fangning Zhang, Dr. Felix Lee, CFA, Franck Le Deu, Jason WANG, Matt Ce Yang, Steve Yang, and many others. Taking courses in the market (as opposed to in Evanston) allows students to fully understand how firms such as Hengrui Pharma, Mindray, Alibaba Group, Innovent Biologics are rising to compete in the global market. They also learn about international firms such as AstraZeneca, GE HealthCare, Eli Lilly and Company, and Becton Dickinson compete to gain access to one of the world's largest markets. The Deep Dive into Healthcare is the cornerstone of Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management's unique program that prepares future business decision-makers in healthcare to have a positive impact on the world.