What if private equity ran medical schools? – Innovation Excellence
Dear Miss. Robertson,
Thank you for responding to our solicitation for a new Dean of our medical school. We are intrigued by your past experience and background in private equity. As you are well aware, things are changing quickly in sick care and the medical education establishment has been slow to adapt. You’ve no doubt heard about large healthcare companies and hospital systems being purchased for staggering sums by private equity firms.We intend to shake things up and are seriously considering alternative, non-traditional candidates like yourself.
Given the uncertain trajectory of basic research funding, dwindling state support for higher education, a broken medical school business model and threats to our clinical enterprise, it is clear that the model of recruiting academic triple threats that excel in research, teaching and clinical care is a dying model. Instead, we are looking for a person with a combination of leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation skills- the new triple threat.
Private equity is fixing and flipping sick care and medical services at an astounding rate and we can see why your skills should be applied to medical education.
Some of the possibilities we envision include:
1. Divesting our medical school from state control since they provide miniscule financial support.
2. Cut costs to the bone
3. Re-examine our tuition model
5. Recruiting a new team with skill sets compatible with our financial objectives
6. Creating IT systems and innovation management systems that add value instead of costs
7. Looking to consolidate and roll up other medical schools that share our perspective and vision
8. Focusing on supporting those who are successful instead of wasting resources on trying to rehabilitate those who clearly do not have what it takes to succeed.
9. Using private equity networks to find the executive talent we need to scale our ventures
10. Using innovative financial products, like crowd funding and other securities instruments to assure an adequate return on investment at exit.
11. Offering online courses in a certificate program designed for potential biomedical entrepreneurs and others who want a more advanced understanding of basic and clinical sciences, medical technologies, innovation opportunities and healthcare systems.
12. A special program for veterans interested in acquiring advanced skills and training funding a new version of the GI bill
13. Integrating health policy, economics, innovation and entrepreneurship into our curriculum
14. Creating a second pathway for MD’s who do not want to practice clinical medicine.
16. Rethinking our admissions process to improve equity, diversity and inclusion to include admissions by lottery, eliminating the MCAT requirement, eliminating admission interviews and eliminating bias against those who attend community colleges or foreign medical schools.
We might also be interested in a divestiture,which we define as the sale of a business unit or division from a corporate parent, such as our departments of family practice or rehabilitation medicine, which have always been a drag on our earnings
To that end, you should be aware that effective next semester, we will be eliminating the 4th year of medical school in an effort to make it better, cheaper and faster. We will be eliminating “audition rotations”, cutting back on non-essential basic science course requirements, making clinical rotations mandatory in the first year and making clinical skills competency a requirement for graduation. Simply put, we are changing the 100 year old model of medical education to conform to the times.
Thank you again for your interest and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Image Credit: Pixabay
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Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org and co-editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship