Nir Menachemi

Dean, Professor, and Fairbanks Endowed Chair at the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health

Nir Menachemi has spent his career living at the intersection of healthcare and business.

“What interested me as I created my research career were issues that presented both clinical and managerial challenges. For example, issues like improving quality, reducing medical errors, or adopting information technology. Each of these topics has clinical and business implications in healthcare organizations,” explains Menachemi, who is a professor of health policy and management.

Now the Executive Associate Dean and Chief Operating Officer at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Menachemi says innate in his training is content from both healthcare and business faculty.

Tomorrow’s physician leader is going to have to be fluent in both business and medicine to be truly effective.

Menachemi received his doctorate in health services administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Before coming to IU, he held faculty positions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health and the Florida State University College of Medicine.

“All of my research looks at either organizational or policy aspects associated with changes to clinical structures or to innovation adoption. It’s very apropos to both the clinical and business sides of healthcare,” Menachemi says.

An understanding of revenue and delivery models in healthcare is a pre-requisite of almost every study he conducts, he explains.

In the Business of Medicine Physician MBA Program, one of the courses Menachemi teaches—Anatomy & Physiology of the U.S. Healthcare System—is an overview of the many different ways the industry has developed models for financing healthcare over the years.

“This is a course that provides a big picture understanding: how all the things physicians experience every single day are related to each other. There are cost containment pressures; there is a focus on improving quality, and there are all these hospital report cards that are being published. Without seeing the 50,000-foot view, it’s hard to appreciate how and why all these things are getting us (the U.S. healthcare system) toward something better.”

This is a course that provides a big picture understanding: how all the things physicians experience every single day are related to each other.

In the Global Healthcare Experience course, Menachemi has accompanied students on trips to Cuba, Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. He says visiting another country to dissect its healthcare system, evaluate their solutions and translate those lessons to the United States provides an excellent learning opportunity for physicians.

“There’s no substitute for on-the-ground experience. You can read all you want about the healthcare system of a given country, but learning doesn’t happen until you’re immersing yourself in that knowledge by talking to hospital CEOs, interacting with physicians and learning about their challenges from the perspectives of these different stakeholders,” he says.

Menachemi also teaches The Role of Health IT in Medicine: Past, Present & Future, a course that familiarizes students with current issues associated with health information technology and its impact on the U.S. healthcare system. Health IT applications (e.g., electronic health records, decision support systems, health information exchanges) are playing an increasingly important role in patient safety and accountable care, and they are now linked to financial reimbursements.

“We need to apply more of those technologies to improve clinical care, not just the business aspect of it,” he says. “Health IT, in its current state in this country, bridges the clinical and business sides of healthcare, which is why I think it’s a very exciting course to have in the Kelley Physician MBA program.”

“Tomorrow’s physician leader is going to have to be fluent in both business and medicine to be truly effective,” Menachemi adds.