Rotman Joins Business School Alliance for Healthcare Management

The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has joined the Business School Alliance for Healthcare Management (BAHM), a consortium of international MBA schools that offer programs with a health sector focus. The alliance aims to transform healthcare through improving education, research and practice.

The Rotman School is the first Canadian and the second non-US member to join BAHM (after the Indian School of Business). Included among a total of 14 member schools are Harvard, UC Berkeley-Haas and the Kellogg School of Management.

Professor of strategic management at Rotman, Will Mitchell, notes the benefits of membership in a “premier life sciences business network” such as BAHM. “[O]ur students, faculty, staff, and alumni will benefit from our involvement…in BAHM’s wide range of activities in the sector.” This includes the ability to tap into a specialized network of adjunct faculty and students, and share engagement tools such as doctoral student webinars and student case competitions.

Rotman offers an MBA major (concentration) in health sector management to both its full-time and part-time students. Recent graduates of the program have gone on to work for nonprofits and companies like Roche, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), equipped with skills to carve out careers in healthcare management, data analytics, and sales and marketing, just to name a few.

Business schools uniquely positioned to improve health sector for public good

According to BAHM, joining the alliance enables member institutions to “more effectively recruit and train tomorrow’s healthcare leaders,” that are central to enacting solutions for healthcare problems that lie outside the realm of clinical practice. Indeed, business skills customized to the unique needs and demands of the sector are in demand among its employers. As such, business schools are uniquely positioned to help transform healthcare for the better, as noted by Rotman administrators: “While other academic disciplines address policy issues facing the health sector, business schools represent the vital link between addressing the practical issues of managing companies and developing leadership for healthcare institutions.”

In addition, a sector that is as “dynamic, fragile and broad” as medicine and healthcare, “[c]ontinued learning and refining of one’s expertise is essential,” testifies healthcare consultant Laura Hill, who holds a master’s degree in public health and an MBA from Yale School of Management, (another member of BAHM).

MBA graduates joining the healthcare industry were found to have enjoyed the biggest bump in salary, pre- to post-MBA, in a 2014 report from GMAC, and the specialized MBA offerings in this area are designed to help participants reach some of those top healthcare management roles.