Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing into an amazing tool to help humans across multiple fields, including medicine and research, and much of that work is happening at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Financial reporting and auditing are both areas where AI can have a significant impact as companies and audit firms are rapidly adopting the use of such technology. But are financial managers willing to rely on the results of AI-generated information? In the context of audit adjustments, it depends on whether their company uses AI as well.

Willing to Rely on AI?

Cassandra Estep, assistant professor of accounting at Goizueta Business School, and her co-authors have a forthcoming study looking at financial managers’ perceptions of the use of AI, both within their companies and by their auditors. Research had already been done on how financial auditors react to using AI for evaluating complex financial reporting. That got Estep and her co-authors thinking there’s more to the story.

“A big, important part of the financial reporting and auditing process is the managers within the companies being audited. We were interested in thinking about how they react to the use of AI by their auditors,” Estep says. “But then we also started thinking about what companies are investing in AI as well. That joint influence of the use of AI, both within the companies and by the auditors that are auditing the financials of those companies, is where it all started.”  

The Methodology

Estep and her co-authors conducted a survey and experiment with senior-level financial managers with titles like CEO, CFO, or Controller – the people responsible for making financial reporting decisions within companies. The survey included questions to understand how companies are using AI. It also included open-ended questions designed to identify key themes about financial managers’ perceptions of AI use by their companies and their auditors.

In the experiment, participants completed a hypothetical case in which they were asked about their willingness to record a downward adjustment to the fair value of a patent proposed by their auditors. The scenarios varied across randomly assigned conditions as to whether the auditor did or not did not use AI in coming up with the proposed valuation and adjustment, and whether their company did or did not use AI in generating their estimated value of the patent. When both the auditor and the company used AI, participants were willing to record a larger adjustment amount, i.e., decrease the value of the patent more. The authors find that these results are driven by increased perceptions of accuracy.

It’s not necessarily a comfort thing, but a signal from the company that this is an acceptable way to do things, and it actually caused them to perceive the auditors’ information as more accurate and of higher quality.

Cassandra Estep, assistant professor of accounting

“Essentially, they viewed the auditors’ recommendation for adjusting the numbers to be more accurate and of higher quality, and so they were more willing to accept the audit adjustment,” Estep says.

Making Financial Reporting More Efficient

Financial reporting is a critical process in any business. Companies and investors need timely and accurate information to make important decisions. With the added element of AI, financial reporting processes can include more external data.

We touched on the idea that these tools can hopefully process a lot more information and data. For example, we’ve seen auditors and managers talk about using outside information.

Cassandra Estep

“Auditors might be able to use customer reviews and feedback as one of the inputs to deciding how much warranty expense the company should be estimating. And is that amount reasonable? The idea is that if customers are complaining, there could be some problem with the products.”

Adding data to analytical processes, when done by humans alone, adds a significant amount of time to the calculations. Research from the European Spreadsheets Risks Interest Group says that more than 90% of all financial spreadsheets contain at least one error. Some forms of AI can process hundreds of thousands of calculations overnight, typically with fewer errors. In short, it can be more efficient.

Efficiency was brought up a lot in our survey, the idea that things could be done faster with AI.

Cassandra Estep

“We also asked the managers about their perspective on the audit side, and they did hope that audit fees would go down, because auditors would be able to do things more quickly and efficiently as well,” Estep says. “But the flip side of that is that using AI could also raise more questions and more issues that have to be investigated. There’s also the potential for more work.”

The Fear of Being Replaced

The fear of being replaced is a more or less universal worry for anyone whose industry is beginning to adopt the use of AI in some form. While the respondents in Estep’s survey looked forward to more efficient and effective handling of complex financial reporting by AI, they also emphasized the need to keep the human element involved in any decisions made using AI.

What we were slightly surprised about was the positive reactions that the managers had in our survey. While some thought the use of AI was inevitable, there’s this idea that it can make things better.

Cassandra Estep

“But there’s still a little bit of trepidation,” Estep says. “One of the key themes that came up was yes, we need to use these tools. We should take advantage of them to improve the quality and the efficiency with which we do things. But we also need to keep that human element. At the end of the day, humans need to be responsible. Humans need to be making the decisions.”

A Positive Outlook

The benefits of AI were clear to the survey participants. They recognized it as a positive trend, whether or not it was currently used in their financial reporting. If they weren’t regularly using AI, they expected to be using it soon.

I think one of the most interesting things to us about this paper is this idea that AI can be embraced. Companies and auditors are still somewhat in their infancy of figuring out how to use it, but big investments are being made.

Cassandra Estep

“And then, again, there’s the fact that our experiment also shows a situation where managers were willing to accept the auditors’ proposed adjustments. This arguably goes against their incentives as management to keep the numbers more positive or optimistic,” Estep continues. “The auditors are serving that role of helping managers provide more reliable financial information, and that can be viewed as a positive outcome.”

“There’s still some hesitation. We’re still figuring out these tools. We see examples all the time of where AI has messed up, or put together false information. But I think the positive sentiment across our survey participants, and then also the results of our experiment, reinforce the idea that AI can be a good thing and that it can be embraced. Even in a setting like financial reporting and auditing, where there can be fear of job replacement, the focus on the human-technology interaction can hopefully lead to improved situations.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

The post The Use of AI in Financial Reporting appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

As part of her work, Seger works alongside women in leadership from the C-Level to the boardroom. “I am so fortunate to work alongside such smart incredible women that are out there doing amazing things, and I don’t think we hear enough about their stories.”

Big Wheel Moments

Harnessing her entrepreneurial spirit, Seger who is COO and partner at SalesGlobe searched for a way to bring these stories to others. She created a podcast aptly named “Riding the Big Wheel,” a platform where women in leadership and the people who support them share their own personal and professional journeys.

Riding a big wheel is like a woman in leadership. There is no straight path. There are many bumps in the road, and you might feel like you’ve gotten hit with a little gravel along the way.

Michelle Seger 96EMBA

Seger recalls riding a bike down a big hill in her neighborhood. “It was huge and a little bit scary. Many times, I would wipe out, but I just kept going back until one day I mastered it. I’ve been back to my old neighborhood and that same hill many years later, and I realized that it really wasn’t that big after all. I had a lot of fun along the way, even with all my scrapes and bruises.”

The podcast showcases women, their stories, and the big steps they take along the way, what Seger calls “their Big Wheel moment.” Whether taking on a first leadership position or completely changing career paths, it can be scary—and exhilarating. What Seger has learned is that these resilient women wouldn’t trade it for anything, and they’ve learned a lot along the way. “Their stories are truly inspirational for anyone to hear, and I learn something from these women every day”.

The Path to Atlanta

Seger’s career path has taken some interesting twists and turns itself. She originally graduated from Siena College with a degree in Spanish and a concentration in French and Political Science. Seger next went to work for a Spanish translation company. When the business announced its relocation to Atlanta, Seger was hesitant to make the move.

“I didn’t really want to relocate. At the time, I was in upstate New York, and I always thought I’d end up in the city at some point. I remember working with a partner at one of the big consulting firms who told me he thought I would make a great consultant. He also said I was going to need an MBA, and I would need greater business experience. So, I took the relocation, got that MBA, and learned SAP, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) darling of the day. That all helped me get the right interviews and choose the right firm for me.

An Emory MBA Along the Way

Her road to that dream job with Accenture started at Emory University, where Seger got her MBA from Goizueta Business School. It was the perfect fit for her. “I loved going to Emory,” she said. “First of all, the Executive MBA program is perfect for those who really want to learn about real business problems and want to solve them with a group of peers. At the time I was one of the younger students in the class. So, I would say others had more experience than I did, and I loved it.”

You have this unique opportunity to meet with highly experienced businesspeople and professors and learn from them. You will meet life-long friends along the way, and I found the investment to be completely worthwhile.

Michelle Seger 96EMBA

Seger took advantage of an opportunity at Emory to take summer pre-courses ahead of her MBA program. “I knew nothing about statistics and accounting. I had a liberal arts degree, and I was a bit worried.” As it turned out, she really didn’t need to be. The classes were taught by the same professors as the MBA program. So, she was able to build a rapport with faculty while bolstering her competencies before beginning the more difficult business courses at Goizueta.

She encourages anyone looking for an MBA program to try Goizueta, because of the diverse experience each member of the cohorts brings to the classroom. She advises MBA students, “Give yourself an opportunity to spend time with everyone, all of your classmates. At the time that I did it, they had us set up in teams, and you had the option to stay or change teams. It would have been incredible to stay with my original team. However, we took the harder decision to switch up team members to increase our learning experience. I would highly recommend that you spend as much time getting to know people in your class as you do on the materials you are learning. It’s an outstanding learning opportunity.”

On the Fast Track

After graduating, Seger landed at Accenture as a consultant and was quickly identified as a high-performer. She was therefore assigned to difficult projects working and traveling up to six days a week as an expert in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.

Back in those days, consulting was grueling. She found herself taking a hard look in the mirror—and at her peers and mentors. Yes, they were all doing great work and making a great living doing what they loved to do. But that came at a personal price that ultimately caused her to leave her job. “The non-stop travel was just too much for me at that point in my life. It was so disappointing, but I felt I needed to make a change. Things have changed a lot since that time. Now we have the best of virtual communication blended in with face-to-face meetings.”

A Path of Her Own

After Seger left Accenture, she opened her own business as a franchisor of an Italian home accessories business, La Bottega di MammaRo, based out of Lucca, Italy, and Tuscan Table Interiors, a remodeling service and retail establishment specializing in European design services. She sold the business after twelve years and started to plan her next big move.

“It was another pivotal moment in my life, and I treated it like a research and discovery project.” She met with a career consultant for advice, and then started her own discovery. “LinkedIn was starting to make headway for businesspeople. So, I started a process of printing out and grouping together job descriptions of things that really interested me.” That’s when the lightbulb went off for her. Seger wanted back in consulting, and she wanted to focus on business performance. At the end of the day, she realized that she really did love owning a piece of the business.

Just Go for It

Seger’s advice for potential MBA students—if you really want it, and you are thinking about it, then just do it. “It helped me as a businesswoman, and I’m proud to tell people that I went to Emory. I know education is expensive, but for me it was worth it.”

What I got out of it was more than textbook content. I learned how to apply it to everyday business situations from the professors and colleagues who took the method and put it to practical work. I suppose the best testament is that I would do it all over again.

Michelle Seger 96EMBA

Seger is a big fan of Audrey Hepburn, and lives by her famous quote, “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible!’”

But some of the best advice she received came from her grandfather. He told her it was important to learn something new every day. “And I do. I think continuous learning keeps you curious. It makes life more interesting, and it keeps me feeling relevant, excited, and energized every day.”

One of her life principles is the belief that you’re never too old to try something new. That’s a piece of advice Seger says she would give her younger self. “I’m doing all the things I really want to do to make this life a great one.” Last year she became SCUBA certified. She went diving in Bali, and then spent another week immersing herself in the local culture. “The joy I got from that experience well surpassed the duration of the trip itself. It has become another dimension of who I am. So just go for it and definitely look back. Take your experiences with you and always remember who you are.”

Empowering Women Leaders

The Goizueta Executive Women’s Leadership Program focuses on critical skills and competencies proven to elevate individual capability and confidence, to help women leaders contribute to organizational value creation. This program – offered through Emory Executive Education – provides an opportunity for women leaders to enhance their strategic thinking, develop an enterprise mindset, hone self-awareness and leadership behaviors, and emerge ready to contribute more strategically and exert greater influence within their organizations. Learn more and apply now.

In Goizueta’s Executive MBA, you’ll develop the leadership skills to forge your own path and build your own legacy. You’ll brush up on business foundations and go deep on business strategy concepts that apply to a broad range of industries. Learn more.

The post Riding the Big Wheel: Meet Michelle Seger appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

However, the path from an innovative idea produced in a lab to profitable business is not easy. On top of that, many of the scientists developing new biotechnology are not as versed in business strategy as they are in innovation. That’s not their area of expertise, and rightly so.

An Innovative Collaboration

It is the area of expertise of the MBA students at Goizueta Business School, and a new collaboration between Emory University, The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and an organization called Nucleate, which is helping scientists create companies from their research and raise capital. By partnering the skillsets of PhD candidates with Emory MBA students, this innovative collaboration gives life to new biotechnology businesses.

Michael Gernatt 24MBA, CEI Fellow and Finance & Strategy Lead of the Atlanta Chapter of Nucleate, says, “Our job is to help them translate their knowledge into real world applications. We give them the resources, capabilities, and education to actually determine if it’s a viable option. So, they can take what they’re working on from the research and lab side and turn that into a potential business that has some commercial application.”

Bringing Business Skills to the Table

Gernatt is one of several MBA candidates working with Nucleate in their activator program. According to Nucleate, the activator program begins by matching the right PhD students with the right MBA students to form teams. They then develop business plans across months of workshops with industry experts. Upon completion, the teams pitch the business to biotechnology executives, advisors, and investors. To date, Nucleate has created 78 companies and raised $310M in capital world-wide.

There are a lot of resources and capabilities that organizations like Goizueta can provide. We can help people that are much more academic and don’t have any business experience.

Michael Gernatt 24MBA

“They’re very smart people,” says Gernatt. “However, they’ve never actually been inside of a board presentation or developed a company strategy. We’re helping them to understand things like, ‘is this market even viable for what we’re trying to do? Is there funding available? What’s the actual value that we are providing?’ And so I think that’s an area where we can help from the business school side of things.”

Diverse Business Backgrounds

Molly McDonald 25MBA, another CEI Fellow, says the students provide context and strategy to support the ideas grown in labs. Before beginning her MBA program, McDonald had a career in consulting. She spent years working in healthcare strategy and financing solutions. “Healthcare, which obviously relates to biomed and biotech, has always been intriguing to me,” she says. “Health directly impacts people’s everyday lives. So, finding innovative ways to improve people’s health is important.”

I think Nucleate is a prime example of how we can partner with people who are experts in the science, and bring our business skillset to the table. We have an opportunity to bring innovation and change-making solutions to the broader population that can have a real impact.

Molly McDonald 25MBA

Gernatt has a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology. His original career plan did not include things like accounting, spreadsheets, or financial strategy. Since beginning his career and continuing his studies at Goizueta, “I’ve developed a better understanding of the ability to process information and communicate. It’s really valuable. And often times, yes, it is done with spreadsheets. But that’s actually how things get done. You need people doing the academic work and clinical work in a healthcare setting. That’s really important. But you also need people who are thinking very strategically about things like, ‘what markets are we pursuing? How are we attracting the right employees? How are we aligning incentives?’”

In this collaboration, which also includes graduate students at Georgia Tech University, Gernatt and McDonald have found a way to put their interest in the health sciences to work alongside their business acumen. Gernatt says, “I’ve realized I’m a little better at thinking through the business side, but I still want to work in the healthcare and life sciences area, because I think the problems that are worth solving are the hardest ones [to solve].”

Making Atlanta a Center of Biotechnology

Most of the world’s biotechnology companies, think tanks, and start-ups have been concentrated in small areas on two coasts of the United States: Northern California on the west coast, and the Northeastern part of the country in areas like Boston, New York, and New Jersey. That’s something Goizueta and Nucleate are looking to change, says McDonald. “When we look at Atlanta and Emory specifically, there’s so much happening in the healthcare and biomed space. And so we’re trying to bridge our strengths of having business school students working with the PhD students in these areas to try to collaborate more, and build off of each other’s strengths.”

A New Way of Developing Biotech Business

Two challenges to commercializing innovation in the biotechnology field are the length of time and scale of funding required to bring an idea from lab to market. Gernatt says, “The cost of developing a drug has increased towards roughly a billion dollars. And it takes about 10 years to actually bring a drug from the lab to an FDA approved drug. Some people may see that and think it’s not worth going after, because it’s just so hard.”

For people that are a little bit more entrepreneurial minded, they think that’s a really great opportunity, because something’s clearly broken there.

Michael Gernatt 24MBA

“If it takes a billion dollars and 10 years… there has to be a better way. And so I think those are the interesting problems that are worth trying to solve,” says Gernatt.

McDonald agrees. “When I think about biotech and biomed, it’s so complex. And I think about the challenge of figuring out what does that actually mean? And what are these people actually trying to do?”

I think that’s where as a business school student can come in and help to really lay out the science. Great, you have this super innovative idea. But now how do we translate that to make it comprehendible and understandable by the general population? That’s something we can help with from a business school perspective.

Molly McDonald 25MBA

Gernatt says, “I certainly do not have all the answers. I also doubt I’m going to be the person to come up with a breakthrough drug. But there’s one thing I think I do have, and am trying to continue to build. I have some of the skill sets and insights to help people that have that really nuanced academic perspective. I can build something from that. So that’s what I want to try to continue to do.”

Learn More

Emory University and The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation look forward to a continued partnership with Nucleate to empower the next generation of biotech leaders. To learn more about the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, sign up for our email newsletter or follow us on our social media channels: LinkedIn | Instagram

The post Building Bridges in Biotechnology: Goizueta MBA Develop Biotechnology Businesses appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

It’s a structure with which most people in the working world are familiar, and it dates back as long as one can remember. The word itself—leader—dates back to as far as the 12^th Century and is derived from the Old English word “laedere,” or one who leads. But in 2001, a group of software engineers developed the Agile Workflow Methodology, a project development process that puts a priority on egalitarian teamwork and individual independence in searching for solutions.

A number of businesses are trying to embrace a flatter internal structure, like the agile workflow. But is it necessarily the best way to develop business processes? That’s the question posed by researchers, including Goizueta Business School’s Özgecan Koçak, associate professor of organization and management, and fellow researchers Daniel A. Levinthal and Phanish Puranam in their recently published paper on organizational hierarchies. 

“Realistically, we don’t see a lot of non-hierarchical organizations,” says Koçak. “But there is actually a big push to have less hierarchy in organizations.”

Part of it is due to the demotivating effects of working in authoritarian workplaces. People don’t necessarily like to have a boss. We place value in being more egalitarian, more participatory.

Özgecan Koçak, Associate Professor of Organization & Management

“So there is some push to try and design organizations with flatter hierarchies. That is specifically so in the context of knowledge-based work, and especially in the context of discovery and search.”

Decoding Organizational Dynamics

While the idea of an egalitarian workplace is attractive to many people, Koçak and her colleagues wanted to know if, or when, hierarchies were actually beneficial to the health of organizations. They developed a computational agent-based model, or simulation, to explore the relationships between structures of influence and organizational adaptation. The groups in the simulation mimicked real business team structures and consisted of two types of teams. In the first type, one agent had influence over the beliefs of rest of the team. For the second type, no one individual had any influence over the beliefs of the team. The hierarchical team vs. the flat structured team.

“When you do simulations, you want to make sure that your findings are robust to those kinds of things like the scale of the group, or the how fast the agents are learning and so forth,” says Koçak.

What’s innovative about this particular simulation is that all the agents are learning from their environment. They are learning through trial and error. They are trying out different alternatives and finding out their value.

Özgecan Koçak

Koçak is very clear that the hierarchies in the simulation are not exactly like hierarchies in a business organization. Every agent was purposefully made to be the same without any difference in wisdom or knowledge. “It’s really nothing like the kinds of hierarchies you would see in organizations where there is somebody who has a corner office, or somebody who is has a management title, or somebody’s making more than the others. In the simulation, it’s nothing to do with those distributional aspects or control, and nobody has the ability to control what others do in (the simulation). All control comes through influence of beliefs.”

Speed vs. Optimal Solutions

What they found in the simulation was that while both teams solved the same problems presented to them, they achieved different results at different speeds.

We find that hierarchical teams don’t necessarily find the best solution, but they find the good enough solution in the shorter term. So if you are looking at the really long term, crowds do better. The crowds where individuals are all learning separately, they find the best solution in the long run, even though they are not learning from each other.

Özgecan Koçak

For example, teams of scientists looking for cures or innovative treatments for diseases work best with a flat structure. Each individual works on their own timeline, with their own search methodologies. The team only comes together for status updates or to discuss their projects without necessarily getting influence or direction from colleagues. The long-term success of the result is more important in some cases than the speed at which they arrive to their conclusion.

That won’t work for an organization that answers to a board of directors or shareholders. Such parties want to see rapid results that will quickly impact the bottom line of the company. This is why the agile methodology is not beneficial to large-scale corporations. Koçak says, “When you try to think about an entire organization, not just teams, it gets more complicated. If you have many people in an organization, you can’t have everybody just be on the same team. And then you have to worry about how to coordinate the efforts of multiple teams.

That’s the big question for scaling up agile. We know that the agile methodology works pretty well at the team level. However, when firms try to scale it up applied to the entire organization, then you have more coordination problems.

Özgecan Koçak

“You need some way to coordinate the efforts with multiple teams.”

The Catch: Compensation Makes a Difference

The simulation did not take into account one of the biggest parts of a corporate hierarchical structure—incentives and reward. The teams in the simulation received no monetary compensation for their leadership or influence. That is not something that happens in real life.

Koçak says, “If you built up an organization with just influence, you just say we’re not going to have any authority, and we’re not going to give anybody the right to control anybody else’s actions. If we’re not going to be rewarding anyone more than the other, there’s not going to be any marks of status, etc. We’re just going to have some people influence others more. I would guess that would automatically lead to a prestige hierarchy right away. The person with more influence, you would start respecting more.”

It’s almost like we’re incapable of working in a flat society, because somebody always wants to be or naturally becomes a leader and an influencer whether they planned on it or not.

Özgecan Koçak

The paper concludes that both methodologies, with either hierarchical and flat organization of teams, reach their goals. They just arrive at different times with different end results. If an organization has the luxury of time and money, a flat, agile methodology organization might be the right structure for that company. However, even agile workflow needs some coordination, according to Koçak.

“There are also some search tasks that require coordination. You can’t always be searching on your own independently of others. There are some situations in which search needs to be done in a coordinated fashion by more than one person in teams. That’s because many of the knowledge-based settings where we do discovery require some division of labor, some specialization by expertise.”

Communication is Key

The key to any successful workflow, whether it be agile or hierarchical, is coordination and communication. Looking back to the example of scientific researchers, Koçak said, “You have scientific teams working independently of one another without a common boss dictating what they do research on or how they do it. Instead, they explore and experiment on their own. They write up their results, share their results, and learn from each other, because they are in the long-term game. The goal is to find the truth, however long it takes. 

“But when you look closely at a scientific team where everybody’s exploring, there is still some need for coordination. A lot of that happens through communication, and a lot of times projects will have a lead. Not necessarily somebody who knows better than the others, but somebody who’s going to help with coordination.”

The leaner, flatter organizational structures in businesses might be gaining popularity. This simulation done by Koçak and colleagues, however, shows that it isn’t a perfect fit for every company, Further, some form of hierarchical workflow is necessary to maintain communication and coordination. Hierarchical structures don’t always find the best solution to a problem, but it’s almost always a good solution in a timelier fashion.

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

The post Decoding Hierarchies in Business: When is Having a Boss a Benefit for an Organization? appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

The two big names in GLP-1 agonists are Ozempic and Wegovy, and both are a form of semaglutide. Another medication, tirzepatide, is sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound. It is also a glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) agonist as well as GLP-1.

Physicians have been prescribing semaglutide and tirzepatide with increasing frequency. However, both medications come with a host of side effects, including nausea and stomach pain, and are not suitable for every patient. Many clinics and physicians do not have immediate access to expert second opinions, as do the physicians at Emory Healthcare.

Creating a Digital Twin 

That lack of an expert is one of the reasons Karl Kuhnert, professor in the practice of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, is using artificial intelligence to capture the expertise of physicians like Caroline Collins MD through the Tacit Object Modeler, or TOM. By using TOM, developed by Merlynn Intelligence Technologies, Kuhnert and Collins can create her “decision-making digital twin.” This allows Collins to reveal her expertise as a primary care physician with Emory Healthcare and an Assistant Professor at Emory School of Medicine, where she has been leading the field in integrating lifestyle medicine into clinical practices and education.

Traditional AI, like ChatGPT, uses massive amount of data points to predict outcomes using what’s known as explicit knowledge. But it isn’t necessarily learning as it goes. According to Kuhnert, TOM has been designed to learn how an expert, like Collins, decides whether or not to prescribe a drug like semaglutide to a patient. Wisdom or tacit knowledge is intuitive and rooted in experience and context. It is hard to communicate, and usually resides only in the expert’s mind. TOM’s ability to “peek into the expert’s mind makes it a compelling technology for accessing wisdom.”

“Objective or explicit knowledge is known and can be shared with others,” says Kuhnert.

For example, ChatGPT uses explicit knowledge in its answers. It’s not creating something new. It may be new to you as you read it, but somebody, somewhere, before you, has created it. It’s understood as coming from some source.

Karl Kuhnert

“Tacit knowledge is subjective wisdom. Experts offer this, and we use their tacit know-how, their implicit knowledge, to make their decisions. If it were objective, everyone could do it. This is why we hire experts: They see things and know things others don’t; they see around corners.”

Mimicking the Mind of a Medical Expert

Teaching TOM to see around the corners requires Collins to work with the AI over the course of a few days. “Essentially what I do is I sit down with, in this case, a physician, and ask them, ‘What are thinking about when you make this decision?'” says Kuhnert. “The layperson might think that there are hundreds of variables in making a medical decision like this. With the expert’s tacit knowledge and experience, it is usually between seven and twelve variables. They decide based on these critical variables,” he says.

These experts have so much experience, they can cut away a lot of the noise around a decision and get right to the point and ask, ‘What am I looking at?’

Karl Kuhnert

As TOM learns, it presents Collins with more and different scenarios for prescribing semaglutide. As she makes decisions, it remembers the variables present during her decision-making process. “Obviously, some variables are going to be more important than other variables. Certain combinations are going to be challenging,” says Collins. “Sometimes there are going to be some variables where I think, yes, this patient needs a GLP-1. Then there may be some variables where I think, no, this person really doesn’t need that. And which ones are going to win out? That’s really where TOM is valuable. It can say, okay, when in these difficult circumstances where there are conflicting variables, which one will ultimately be most important in making that decision?”

The Process: Trusting AI

After working with TOM for several hours, Collins will have reacted to enough scenarios for TOM to learn to make her decision. The Twin will need to demonstrate that it can replicate her decision-making with acceptable accuracy—high 90s to 100 percent. Once there, Collins’ Twin is ready to use.

“I think it’s important to have concordance between what I would say in a situation and then what my digital twin would say in a situation because that’s our ultimate goal is to have an AI algorithm that can duplicate what my recommendation would be given these circumstances for a patient,” Collins says. “So, someone, whether that be an insurance company, or a patient themselves or another provider, would be able to consult TOM, and in essence, me, and say, in this scenario, would you prescribe a GLP-1 or not given this specific patient’s situation?”

The patient’s current health and family history are critical when deciding whether or not to prescribe semaglutide. For example, according to Novo Nordisk, the makers of Ozempic, the drug should not be prescribed to patients with a history of problems with the pancreas or kidneys or with a family history of thyroid cancer. Those are just the start of a list of reasons why a patient may or may not be a good candidate for the medication.

Kuhnert says, “What we’re learning is that there are so many primary care physicians right now that if you come in with a BMI over 25 and are prediabetic, you’re going to get (a prescription). But there’s much more data around this to suggest that there are people who are health marginalized, and they can’t do this. They should not have this (medication). It’s got to be distributed to people who can tolerate it and are safe.”

Accessing the Digital Twin on TOM   

Collins’s digital twin could be available via something as easy to access as an iPhone app. “Part of my job is to provide the latest information to primary care physicians. Now, I can do this in a way that is very powerful for primary care physicians to go on their phones and put it in. It’s pretty remarkable, according to Colllins.”

It is also transparent and importantly sourced information.  

Any physician using a digital twin created with TOM will know exactly whose expertise they are accessing, so anyone asking for a second opinion from Colllins will know they are using an expert physician from Emory University.

In addition to patient safety, there are a number of ways TOM can be useful to the healthcare industry when prescribing medications like semaglutide. This includes interfacing with insurance companies and the prior approval process, often lengthy and handled by non-physician staff. “Why is a non-expert at an insurance company determining whether a patient needs a medication or not? Would it be better to have an expert?” says Collins. “I’m an expert in internal medicine and lifestyle medicine. So, I help people not only lose weight, but also help people change their behaviors to optimize their health. My take on GLP-1 medications is not that everyone needs them, it’s that they need to be utilized in a meaningful way, so patients will get benefit, given risks and benefits for these medications.”

The Power of a Second Opinion

Getting second, and sometimes third, opinions is a common practice among physicians and patients both. When a patient presents symptoms to their primary care physician, that physician may have studied the possible disease in school but isn’t necessarily an expert. In a community like Emory Healthcare, the experts are readily available, like Collins. She often serves as a second opinion for her colleagues and others around the country.

“What we’re providing folks is more of a second opinion. Because we want this actually to work alongside someone, you can look at this opinion that this expert gave, and now, based on sourced information, you can choose. This person may be one of the best in the country, if not the world, in making this decision. But we’re not replacing people here. We’re not dislocating people with this technology. We need people. We need today’s and tomorrow’s experts as well,” according to Kuhnert.

But also, you now have the ability to take an Emory physician’s diagnosing capabilities to physicians in rural areas and make use of this information, this knowledge, this decision, and how they make this decision. We have people here that could really help these small hospitals across the country.

Caroline Collin MD

Rural Americans have significant health disparities when compared to those living in urban centers. They are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, injury, chronic respiratory disease, and stroke. Rural areas are finding primary care physicians in short supply, and patients in rural areas are 64 percent less likely to have access to medical specialists for needed referrals.

Smaller communities might not have immediate access to experts like a rheumatologist, for example. In addition, patients in more rural areas might not have the means of transportation to get to a specialist, nor have the financial means to pay for specialized visits for a diagnosis. Collins posits that internal medicine generalists might suspect a diagnosis but want to confirm before prescribing a course of treatment.

“If I have a patient for whom I am trying to answer a specific question, ‘Does this patient have lupus?’, for instance. I’m not going to be able to diagnose this person with lupus. I can suspect it, but I’m going to ask a rheumatologist. Let’s say I’m in a community where unfortunately, we don’t have a rheumatologist. The patient can’t see a rheumatologist. That’s a real scenario that’s happening in the United States right now. But now I can ask the digital twin acting as a rheumatologist, given these variables, ‘Does this patient have lupus?’ And the digital twin could give me a second opinion.”

Sometimes, those experts are incredibly busy and might not have the physical availability for a full consult. In this case, someone could use TOM to create the digital twin of that expert. This allows them to give advice and second opinions to a wider range of fellow physicians.

As Kuhnert says, TOM is not designed or intended to be a substitute for a physician. It should only work alongside one. Collins agreed, saying, “This doesn’t take the place of a provider in actual clinical decision-making. That’s where I think someone could use it inappropriately and could get patients into trouble. You still have to have a person there with clinical decision-making capacity to take on additional variables that TOM can’t yet do. And so that’s why it’s a second opinion.”

“We’re not there yet in AI says Collins. We have to be really careful about having AI make actual medical decisions for people without someone there to say, ‘Wait a minute, does this make sense?’”

AI Implications in the Classroom and Beyond

Because organizations use TOM to create digital twins of their experts, the public cannot use the twins to shop for willing doctors. “We don’t want gaming the system,” says Collins. “We don’t want doctor shopping. What we want is a person there who can utilize AI in a meaningful way – not in a dangerous way. I think we’ll eventually get there where we can have AI making clinical decisions. But I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with that yet.”

The implications of using decision-making digital twins in healthcare reach far beyond a second opinion for prescription drugs. Kuhnert sees it as an integral part of the future of medical school classrooms at Emory. In the past, teaching case studies have come from books, journals, and papers. Now, they could come alive in the classroom with AI simulation programs like TOM.

I think this would be great for teaching residents. Imagine that we could create a simulation and put this in a classroom, have (the students) do the simulation, and then have the physician come in and talk about how she makes her decisions.

Karl Kuhnert

“And then these residents could take this decision, and now it’s theirs. They can keep it with them. It would be awesome to have a library of critical health decisions made in Emory hospitals,” Kuhnert says.

Collins agreed. “We do a lot of case teaching in the medical school. I teach both residents and medical students at Emory School of Medicine. This would be a really great tool to say, okay, given these set of circumstances, what decision would you make for this patient? Then, you could see what the expert’s decision would have been. That could be a great way to see if you are actually in lockstep with the decision-making process that you’re supposed to be learning.”

Kuhnert sees decision-making twins moving beyond the healthcare system and into other arenas like the courtroom, public safety, and financial industries and has been working with other experts to digitize their knowledge in those fields.

The way to think about this is: say there is a subjective decision that gets made that has significant ramifications for that company and maybe for the community. What would it mean if I could digitize experts and make it available to other people who need an expert or an expert’s decision-making?

Karl Kuhnert

“You think about how many people aren’t available. Maybe you have a physician who’s not available. You have executives who are not available. Often expertise resides in the minds of just a few people in an organization,” says Kuhnert.

“Pursuing the use of technologies like TOM takes the concept of the digital human expert from simple task automation to subjective human decision-making support and will expand the idea of a digital expert into something beyond our current capabilities,” Kuhnert says. “I wanted to show that we could digitize very subjective decisions in such areas as ethical and clinical decision-making. In the near future, we will all learn from the wisdom codified in decision-making digital twins. Why not learn from the best? There is a lot of good work to do.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

The post Training Innovative AI to Provide Expert Guidance on Prescription Medications appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

“When we were doing the private debt (exercises), a lot of what you would see would be a lot of business plans,” Fishman says. “I started to see a good number of businesses in the pet space. I was good friends with Matt Gryder. I called him up one day, and said ‘Hey, I’m starting to see a lot of these businesses in the pet space. What do you think about talking through it?’ I trusted his advice. I trusted his logic, and he said, ‘I’m interested too.’”

Gryder says, “It was clear at the time how people treat their dogs. I was also taking my dog to a dog daycare at the time. I knew when we traveled, we always had to board, and so I was already part of that ecosystem of dog day cares. When I walk in and drop my dog off, I can see how many dogs are there, and it was a lot. As I dug more into it, (I saw) this is the potential business.”

Business Over Lunch

The pet care industry is experiencing fairly rapid growth and expansion of services. More than 65 million Americans have a dog in their household. What’s more, pet owners spent $136.8 billion on their animals in 2022, up almost 11% from 2021. Both Fishman and Gryder had dogs at the time, so they were familiar with the industry from a consumer standpoint. From a business standpoint, however, they needed some insight from someone on the inside. So, in 2017, Fishman called the then-owner of Barking Hound Village. It’s the largest locally-owned dog services company, and has been in business since 1999.

One day I just picked up the phone and I found the name of the owner. I just sent him a note saying ‘Hey, I’m a customer. I’d love to understand you and your business a little bit better.

Matthew Fishman 13MBA

“We ended up going to lunch,” says Fishman. “By the end of the meal we basically agreed on a purchase price and worked backwards from there.”

It’s an unusual way to enter into entrepreneurship. But Fishman, who serves as Barking Hound Village’s CEO, and Gryder, who serves as CFO, were ready. They say their work at Goizueta prepared them for owning their own business. Both had been in the financial industry before returning to graduate school at Emory. Fishman was working as an Assistant Vice President at Voya Financial, and Gryder was a finance manager at T5 Data Centers.

Back to School

Fishman says of his decision to get his MBA at Goizueta, “The primary reason that I went back to school was because my skill set was very pigeonholed. I was in mortgage-backed securities. I knew how to analyze mortgage-backed securities. I didn’t really understand how to do a financial analysis on an entity, nor a proper evaluation of an entity. Going back to school at Goizueta gave me the tools, so that if I was presented with an opportunity, or I wanted to explore an opportunity such as acquiring a business, I had the basis to do so and the network to have a really solid sounding board.”

The tools they learned at Goizueta influence the business decisions the partners make on a daily basis, whether overtly or through the vast experience with real-life business scenarios the MBA program provides. Gryder says in his experience, that education at Goizueta has provided him a distinct advantage above some of his competitors.

What I learned at Emory I’m applying almost every single day. Sometimes I know it, and I can actually name what I’m doing. Other times I can look back and think, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. We had talked about this or read this case study in grad school.

Matt Gryder 13MBA

“One thing specifically is price increases, the elasticity of demand,” Gryder says. “At what point can we raise prices and how much? We’ve raised prices four times since we’ve owned the business.

“But we use that every single time. We know that concept through grad school, and I would have otherwise never learned that concept. We talked to some of our competitors, and they’re just throwing numbers against the wall, increasing prices 25 percent. They’re not doing it incrementally. And they’re waiting too long. They’re doing all of these things that we’re not doing because we learned about that in grad school.”

Learning the Language of Business

Working in a business partnership is, according to Fishman, a lot like a marriage. It requires work to make it successful. Gryder says, “The communication is just the absolute, most important thing. That’s true whether you’re communicating with your business partner, to a manager, to a customer, to motivate employees, or trying to explain to them to how to do things better.

“You know all of these different communication skills I learned at Emory. Specifically, one is ‘Yes, and.’ You play this game where you start talking to somebody. It’s like improv, and you don’t say no. You always say yes, and that keeps the conversation going, and it doesn’t shut down ideas. So that’s something that I’ve been applying since.”

In addition to communication skills, the knowledge gained from the MBA program has also helped both owners to focus on diversifying revenue streams and expanding the current daycare and boarding business. Barking Hound Village currently has seven locations throughout Metro Atlanta. They also have a property set aside in Roswell for possible future development.

Fishman and Gryder have recently opened a new business, Coatly. It’s a bath and grooming experience for dogs that encourages regular coat maintenance for all dogs, regardless of size and coat needs. Services include everything from bathing to nail trims to full grooms. From a business standpoint, grooming is a natural extension of Barking Hound Village’s current offerings. The market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 7.09% from 2022 to 2030, and the grooming industry as a whole is currently worth more than $1.3 billion a year.

Leveraging Your Network

Outside of the direct skills learned in the classroom, both Fishman and Gryder mentioned the Emory alumni network as being one of the biggest benefits of obtaining an MBA from Goizueta. After all, it’s how they met and formed their business partnership.

“I’m using my network all the time,” Gryder says. “I went into business with somebody I met at Emory. A couple of financial advisors and investors that I’ve met at Emory, that are my age, I have money with them. So, we’re calling on that network for personal issues and also for business issues. If we ever need to get financing from a bank, we may reach out to that network to see who they know.”

My life is intertwined with Emory. Everything I experienced at Emory has shaped where I’m at today.

Matt Gryder 13MBA

Fishman agrees. “The network is very valuable. I mean a lot of my best friends are still from Goizueta. And it’s been 10 years since graduation. Most of them have pretty powerful jobs around Atlanta. So you know the network you build there is very strong. Throughout your career and business…you are problem solving…whether it be real estate valuation, real estate acquisition, some form of tax strategy, business acquisition. It’s in my personality to run that by my friends to gain their thoughts. Their experiences may provide a different way to look at it. That’s been the case with us and our growth and Barking Hound.

The education you get out of it is very valuable. But no one retains all the details of an education 10 years from the time in which he got it. But you do retain the network, and that’s as powerful as the education.

Matthew Fishman 13MBA

Fishman continued, “We haven’t had to do this, (but) if I have to go and raise capital, I know I’ll have a strong network of people from the program that I could go and hypothetically raise some capital from it. It’s a gift that’s continued to give.”

Interested in learning more? Find out how the Goizueta MBA takes students beyond business as usual. 

The post How Two MBA Grads Built a Booming Pet Care Business appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

More than two million individuals in the US are experiencing Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). The CDC defines OUD as “a problematic pattern of opioid use that causes significant impairment or distress.”

Around 130 people die of opioid overdoses every day. Perhaps more startlingly, four million people over the age of 12 have reported using pain medication recreationally, including opioids. Prescription opioids are a highly-regulated class of drug. They interact with the opioid receptors on nerve cells throughout the body, as well as the brain, which reduces the intensity of pain signals to the body.

For many, they are a necessary prescription to get through the pain of surgery or injury, as the body heals itself. Unfortunately, the function of opioids in the body—releasing endorphins and boosting feelings of pleasure, as well as reducing pain—also make them highly addictive.

PDMP: A Successful Federal Mandate

The United States continues to see increases in deaths from opioid overdoses. So, federal and state governments have been working in enact policies that are designed to decrease those fatalities. One of the methods states are using to prevent common abuse patterns like “doctor shopping,” which is the pattern of visiting multiple physicians to obtain prescriptions, is the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), designed to be used in conjunction with Health Information Technology (HIT) programs. PDMP serve two purposes: identifying drug-seeking behaviors in patients, and identifying physicians with patterns of inappropriate prescribing.

Nearly all 50 states have enacted PDMPs of some degree. Some programs require physicians to check the PDMP before prescribing restricted pharmaceuticals, but in others it’s only suggested. Intrastate communication between PDMPs is not always possible, however.

The Unintended Consequences

The use of PDMPs has been shown to reduce the number of opioid prescriptions, the intended outcome of the program. Enter a recently published study by Diwas KC, Goizueta Foundation Term Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management. The research shows that during time the research was conducted, prescriptions for opioids declined by 6.1%.

However, the research also brought to light a very serious and unintended consequence of the implementation of PDMPs. The study concluded that while the implementation of PDMPs did reduce opioid prescriptions, it did not reduce overall numbers of prescription opioid deaths. In fact, it may have contributed to a 50% increase in heroin overdose fatalities.

“The heroin increase was definitely something we were not expecting, it was a total surprise,” says KC.

It was something that we had hypothesized. You’ve got a bunch of individuals who have used prescription opiates and had presumably been dependent. Now with the passage of this PDMP law, it has become more difficult to obtain prescription opiates. Therefore, some people might be forced to turn to the street version of it.

Diwas KC

“We didn’t expect the effect size it to be as significant as it is,” says KC.

Heroin and commonly prescribed opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone are very similar on a biochemical level. What’s more, they generate a similar sensation in the body, according to KC. That’s why he and his team had the initial hypothesis that some addicted individuals, when unable to get prescription medication, might turn to street drugs, which are much more dangerous on many levels.

“There are many aspects to this. One has to do with the potency and the toxicity of the things you get on the streets. There are very little checks and balances on those. There’s no control in quality for sure,” KC says. He also notes the lack of checks and balances on the frequency of usage. “So the frequency of usage, the quality of the substances you’re putting inside your body, and possibly the circumstances of acquiring it might also be very risky too.”

A Dual Impact

The research concludes that mandating PDMP use is an example of a successful use of policy for intervention. It does, in fact, decrease the number of opioid prescriptions available to patients. That’s critical information for policy makers and physicians to take in. And it’s a solid reason to keep using and expanding PDMP usage, according to KC.

I should point out very clearly that the policy did have the intended effect of reducing prescriptions. So, it definitely benefited people who might otherwise have become addicted.

Diwas KC

“By reducing unnecessary prescriptions it might have limited the number of people who would have gotten hooked on the drugs in the first place. So there’s definitely the benefit of that,” says KC. “It’s just that when the policy was implemented, there was also this side effect because of people who were already using it. So, when those people were forced to look for alternatives, that’s when things got bad.”

Research papers like this one show an important side of using data to mark successes and failures of government policies. Taken on the surface, data can show a policy’s impact for the greater good. But a deeper dive into the surrounding data—like the increase in heroin use after the implementation of PDMPs—gives everyone a better idea of the full impact of this mandate.

Policies have intended as well as unintended consequences. In this case of PDMP it had the desired effect of reducing prescriptions. That probably helped a lot of people not get addicted to opiates in the first place.

Diwas KC

“But sometimes policies also have unintended consequences,” says KC. “Like in the case of people who were already addicted to painkillers suddenly stopping it, causing them to take drastic actions, and that’s what happened for some of the people in the study. Policies need to consider the possibility of unintended consequences and take actions to also mitigate those unintended consequences.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

The post Mandated Restrictions on Opioid Prescriptions Have Unintended—and Deadly—Consequences appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Healthcare is a business like many other industries, but instead of just making money, healthcare workers must also save lives. Navigating patient care and profitability is a unique challenge that neither business professionals nor doctors are able to address alone. Goizueta helps bridge that gap, teaching clinicians the fundamentals of business and teaching business professionals how to apply their knowledge specifically within the healthcare field.

First and foremost, the chief medical officer must be a good physician, according to Gregory Esper MD 09EMBA, associate chief medical officer of Emory University Healthcare System.

There are no successful CMOs that are not first thought of as excellent clinicians. No physician body is going to follow a chief medical officer who they do not first trust clinically.

Gregory Esper MD 09EMBA, associate chief medical officer of Emory University Healthcare System

“You also have to have transparency and integrity―your ‘yes’ is yes and your ‘no’ is no―and that you are not rash in the decisions that you’re making. It’s important to weigh the gravity of situations and decisions that you need to make with great care,” Esper says.

Preparing Healthcare Leaders to Succeed in Business

It’s not often that medical schools teach budgeting, leadership, operations, and human resources. That’s why Emory University’s Goizueta Business School offers healthcare concentrations in its Full-time MBA, Evening MBA, and Executive MBA programs. Goizueta also offers its Chief Medical Officer Program within its Emory Executive Education department.

Nicola Barrett is Goizueta’s chief corporate learning officer and oversees Emory Executive Education. She says, “Healthcare leaders are facing so many new challenges. There’s the introduction of new technologies, changes in societal expectations, research that’s uncovering patient and population equity disparities, and burnout of clinical staff. And that’s just a few. Understanding these dynamics and leading others in a way that helps them feel valued and willing to embrace change is important.”

We’re helping to equip senior medical officers and healthcare leaders with the skills and knowledge to make good decisions for their patients, their people, and their organizations. We’re teaching them to be aware of the implications and opportunities afforded by the changing healthcare landscape, and to effectively contribute to the strategic direction and success of their enterprise.

Nicola Barrett, Goizueta’s chief corporate learning officer

Healthcare executives and doctors have been through many years of education as well as many years of experience in their field. They might wonder how an MBA or CMO certificate can help further an already established career.

Sarah Kier 20EMBA is vice president of enterprise access at Emory Healthcare. She says that learning with her cohort gave her a broader perspective on concepts that she already understood, but only from the perspective of her niche.

“When you’ve been in your industry for that long, you have a deep but fairly narrow understanding of the business world,” she says. “Gaining that kind of expansion, learning from people across industries, you start seeing things from a different chair or a perspective.”

Adapting to and Adopting New Technology

Goizueta alumni are leading the way in adopting developing technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), to create the healthcare systems of the future. They’re learning those skills at Goizueta.

There are many ways to integrate AI into the medical field. Some are already in use on a regular basis, including patient data analysis, maintaining records, and insurance and billing management. But the prospect of using AI as a diagnostic tool, and not just as an administrator, is expanding. The ability of AI to provide accurate diagnoses and assist in personalizing treatment means it is a viable tool to add to a patient’s treatment team. However, experts say it will never replace trained physicians.

“I like the approach of saying that today’s trainee is going to operate in 2050. What is their world going to be like then?” says Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management.

The world they are entering now is going to be transformed radically, and they can be a part of that. They’re coming in with values that are different than their counterpart 20 years ago, and I think they will have more opportunities to shape that future than their predecessors.

Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management

Embracing AI in Healthcare

Esper has already worked with AI tools like ChatGPT to make his job more efficient, using it recently with a colleague to help write a new policy. This task would have taken his team days, but with ChatGPT’s assistance it took mere minutes.

“AI will create efficiencies in the analysis of data, the ability to have predictive analytics, that are going to be considerable. Even pathologists and radiologists are now using AI to identify areas of abnormality on scans and pathology. At this point, it doesn’t substitute for human interpretation, but at some point, it may,” Esper says. AI is helpful but not quite perfect and may never be, which is where the element of human interaction is crucial.

“You have to be careful. You have to say, is this right? What could be wrong? How can I use this more effectively? What’s the appropriate use of this? If I use this in this circumstance, can someone get hurt? I think those are considerations for the use of AI in medicine,” says Kier.

We have to embrace it. Because if we don’t, we won’t be leveraging technology that can help our patients and our families―and frankly, our people—from an efficiency perspective.

Sarah Kier 20EMBA, vice president, enterprise access at Emory Healthcare

Kier knows the future of healthcare lies in technology. But she approaches it from a more patient-focused view than just data entry and predictive modeling. Most patient portal systems, including the recently launched EPIC system used by Emory Healthcare, can track data like patient no-show rates. But Kier wants to ask even more of AI than just data tracking and analysis.

“The important part for me is what else and where else? So many people suffer from loneliness. And so many people go undiagnosed with mental illness because they’re not speaking to anyone else. How can AI help with that? Could your toothbrush notice that you haven’t brushed your teeth in three days. That probably means you’re not in an OK headspace? How can we plug those things in and get a real 360-degree picture of the person?”

Building Financial Prowess

There’s another formidable challenge for physicians and healthcare executives moving into leadership position. They need a wide range of skills in addition to the ones honed in medical school, residency, and practice as a physician.

Healthcare executives, including CMOs, must be able to work with hospital boards of directors. They handle budgets upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. These budgets cover not only actual medical care but also staffing, purchasing, general operations costs, and capital improvements. They must also make decisions about “non-funded” projects like free health screenings for the community.

Michael Sacks, is professor in the practice of organization and management at Goizueta. He teaches courses on leadership and organizational behavior in both the CMO program and the Executive MBA program.

It’s unusual for anyone to be equally skilled in distinct skills like finance, healthcare delivery, people management, and so many other topics. We try to build skills in each specific area, as well as teach our participants how to balance across these demands and communicate effectively to different audiences.

Michael Sacks, professor in the practice of organization and management

Any MBA graduate will tell you Excel is a key component of their training. But the Executive MBA program taught Esper so much more than just how to read a spreadsheet. “There are techniques you learn in operations that help you when you’re managing specific projects. When looking at data and analytics, it’s the ability to understand what data was pulled, and how. You ask ‘Is the data answering the most important question?’” he says. “Oftentimes I’ll have experience that I draw on from my case studies. I’m applying things I learned in business school to existing problems in healthcare.”

Handling the Staffing Crisis and Retaining Quality Professionals

Staffing issues have become a common problem in most healthcare and hospital systems. It’s an issue that all CMOs and healthcare executives have to face. The pandemic accelerated retirements of the baby boomer generation. That was expected to happen more slowly over the next 20 years. Burnout of medical staff from the intense and long workdays did not help. “Money is certainly part of the situation; however, it’s much more complicated than that” says Sacks. “Healthcare is a very demanding and challenging workplace where people literally make life or death decisions. Creating an environment where teams work well together, people feel psychologically safe to speak their minds, and support one another in difficult times is essential in healthcare.”

Healthcare workers are so much more than just their roles within an organization, according to Jaclyn Conner, associate dean of the Executive MBA program and Evening MBA. Goizueta graduates learn to work with healthcare workers as both people and employees. “Quality leaders acknowledge that there are people at the core of any operation. It is vital to have empathy, compassion, and consideration as a leader,” she says.

Challenging decisions have to be tackled daily, but strong organizations have a sense of community and core values. Our Executive MBA alumni profess strong values and implement them as leaders.

Jaclyn Conner, associate dean of the Executive MBA program and Evening MBA

One way to circumvent staffing gaps might actually be technology, according to Kier. “We do not have the human capital to do things the way we used to do them. So it’s an exciting moment for technology, because it can help. AI has so much promise in all the things that you’d think of it for. It can remove rote tasks. These are things that are mindless, that we currently pay humans to do because somebody has to push the buttons. AI will certainly be doing all those things.”

The Transformative Power of Executive Education

In the meantime, humans are still running the business of healthcare. Advancing knowledge through an executive education program is one way to keep up with the ever-changing business. Esper says says people ask him about Goizueta’s Executive MBA often. He says they should have a good reason to pursue such a degree. That’s the key success in the program.

“People ask me all the time, ‘I want to get an MBA. What do you think?’ I will tell people that it’s not just three letters behind your name, or behind an MD. That doesn’t mean much if you don’t know why you’re getting it and what you want to do with it.”

Education can be transformational, but you have to lean in and approach the process with purpose. That will be the real game changer.

Are you looking to level up your career? Learn more about Emory Executive Education, our top-ranked Executive MBA, and Goizueta Business School’s many other degree programs to chart your own path to success.

The post Talking About the Business of Healthcare appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Patrick Forrestal 24MBA originally wanted to play college football, and hadn’t considered a career in the military. But when the Naval Academy offered him a chance to play, he couldn’t say no. Both his father and grandfather are Academy alumni. Forrestal graduated in May of 2017 and served five years in the Marine Corps as an aviation supply officer. He spent three years in San Diego and one deployment in Kuwait in 2020.

As Forrestal considered his next move after completing his service, the Albany, Georgia native knew he wanted a career in business in Atlanta, close to family. And a full-time MBA program seemed the way forward.

At the end of the day, Emory made the most sense. Emory differentiated itself with the small class size, experiential learning opportunities provided through the IMPACT program, and the tight-knit veteran community led by LTG (ret.) Ken Keen.

Patrick Forrestal

Comradery in the Classroom

Those veterans in the full time MBA program made Forrestal feel welcome beginning on day one. Active duty kept him from the first week of official onboarding at Goizueta. But when he walked into his first class at 8:00am, Forrestal immediately found the veterans in the class. They were seated together on the front row.

However, it’s not just the other veterans that make a difference. The faculty at Goizueta also play a critical role in supporting the school’s veteran community.

“When you’re in a classroom talking about business concepts, you wouldn’t really think that the military guys would have a lot of things to talk about. But the teachers really turn to us and ask us to talk about our experiences. It’s in a sense comforting and makes you feel like you’re bringing value there.”

Beyond Graduation

Forrestal graduates in May 2024, and will begin working for EY-Parthenon as a management consultant. While he’s looking forward to his new career, he’s also looking forward to helping prospective veteran students.

“The veteran alumni network is a very welcoming community. As I was considering different careers and different firms, I didn’t have a single veteran that didn’t respond to an email or didn’t set time on a calendar to talk to me about their experience. Now having the ability to do that for class behind us for the prospective students coming is super rewarding.”

And if graduating from Goizueta Business School with his MBA and starting a new job weren’t exciting enough life changes, Forrestal and his wife Ansley are expecting their first child in March.

Goizueta is proud to support our nation’s veterans and active-duty servicemembers as they continue their education. Learn more about our new Master in Business for Veterans program.

The post Meet Patrick Forrestal: Creating Connections in Goizueta’s Veteran Community appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.