The initiative provides guidance for faculty and students on navigating the institutional review board process, accessing and interpreting health-care data, interpreting HIPAA regulations, and connecting with experts at UChicago Medicine. It also collaborates with the Booth Healthcare Club. “We’re a venue for faculty to share their research results in a centralized place where external constituents can learn about the great work at Booth in the health-care space,” Adelman said. He noted that this fills a need at the business school. “If you look at our peers, almost all of them have some sort of health-care center or initiative. Health care is 18 percent of GDP, so there’s an interest in developing this space at Booth.”
Ultimately, he hopes the initiative will serve as a business and health-care destination similar to the way Booth’s Kilts Center for Marketing does for that field. “We’ve talked about fellowship programs and mentorship opportunities. We aspire to develop scholarship money and we’d like to bring in residents—not just from our hospital but broadly—who are interested in getting their MBA.”
One of the initiative’s first events, in late 2020, was a virtual conversation between Adelman and Dr. Omar B. Lateef, president and CEO of Rush University Medical Center, in which they discussed how the City of Chicago responded to the COVID-19 epidemic, capacity constraints, PPE price gouging, nursing shortages, and morale and motivation issues.
“It’s important that Booth students take advantage of the fact that we have a superb medical center right on campus and that we teach international differences in health-care systems versus the US health-care system,” Olufunmilayo Olopade said. “It provides an opportunity to have a global education on what health and wellness should be about.”
“Many average Americans do not have health literacy,” she said. “That’s why it’s important to teach this to MBA students. After all, they’ll be creating solutions.”