In this episode we welcome Dr. Dan West. Dr. West is a Professor and Past Chair in the Department of Health Administration and Human Resources at The University of Scranton. He is recognized as a global healthcare expert, and he holds faculty appointments at several universities in Central & Eastern Europe. Dr. West has been a hospital CEO, physician practice CEO, and healthcare consultant. He serves or has served on many boards, including as a board member with a health system. He is Board Certified in healthcare management with American College of Healthcare Executives, and certified with the American College of Medical Practice Executives. He is recognized as a Master Fellow with CAHME, chairs CAHME’s Global Advisory Council, and was past Chair of the CAHME Board and CAHME Accreditation Council.
In this episode Dr. West discusses his passion for understanding best practices in healthcare around the globe. Dr. West and Anthony will discuss why understanding what is going on in diverse cultures around the world is vital for future healthcare leaders and educators. They review how CAHME plays a vital role in sharing best practices and raising the bar for all programs ...not just in North America, but worldwide, to advance the quality of healthcare management education.
In this episode we welcome Dr. Dan West. Dr. West is a Professor and Past Chair in the Department of Health Administration and Human Resources at The University of Scranton. He is recognized as a global healthcare expert, and he holds faculty appointments at several universities in Central & Eastern Europe. Dr. West has been a hospital CEO, physician practice CEO, and healthcare consultant. He serves or has served on many boards, including as a board member with a health system. He is Board Certified in healthcare management with American College of Healthcare Executives, and certified with the American College of Medical Practice Executives. He is recognized as a Master Fellow with CAHME, chairs CAHME’s Global Advisory Council, and was past Chair of the CAHME Board and CAHME Accreditation Council.
In this episode Dr. West discusses his passion for understanding best practices in healthcare around the globe. Dr. West and Anthony will discuss why understanding what is going on in diverse cultures around the world is vital for future healthcare leaders and educators. They review how CAHME plays a vital role in sharing best practices and raising the bar for all programs ...not just in North America, but worldwide, to advance the quality of healthcare management education.
Well, Melissa. Thank you very much for that introduction and warm welcome today to our guest, Dan West. Dan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Glad to be with you.
Speaker 1:You know, as I was getting ready for this, I was thinking, dan, it's been 15 years since we met and we met when I was with AeroMark and we had started a fellowship program and I remember giving you a call and kind of describing it and you contributed one of the first fellows to the AeroMark fellowship part and someone who's went on to be very successful and the great university of Scranton graduate, neil Pathick, and Neil just recently completed a video for us about all the work he's doing at another program at Creighton University. So there's got to be some sense for you of the continuity of what you bring in your role at the University of Scranton.
Speaker 2:Well, it certainly has been an interesting career for me, and you mentioned AeroMark and that was a pivotal point really with some of the things that we did together. I mean, aeromark was right up front in supporting fellowships, engaging students, really seeing the future of health management education, and so it was something that I immediately felt comfortable with when you gave a call. And yeah, it's true, neil Pathick finished his doctorate and is now doing well in his health care career. So it's always nice to see that. You know. You feel real comfortable when you know that people have learned something in there, now out there contributing to the profession.
Speaker 1:Yeah, making a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, making a difference.
Speaker 1:Dan, let's first go back to your early career, and you and I have kind of talked about this. I mean, you were a consultant, and do you want to talk a little bit about that? I think it's very interesting to kind of hear you were a practitioner and you were someone who really worked in health care at very high levels and then moved into academia, so could you, could you, just give a little brief background on that for her?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'd be real happy to do that, because here again, I've been really given some opportunities, which have panned out quite well. You know, I was working for a Catholic health care system. It was a smaller system at the time, but a new CEO came in and he was a strong advocate for education, and so when it ended up happening, I got a call from Penn State University about the doctoral program and went to my CEO and I said, look, is there any way I can do this? Can I take a leave of absence or whatever? And so I really, as an assistant vice president, was able to get back into academia and focus on health services research, because it was a PhD program and Penn State was what we call an R1 university.
Speaker 2:And then I came back, because part of the deal that I was, you owe us time and you know.
Speaker 2:So I came back into the system at that time, and so the first thing that I learned was the daughters of charity. They were a large healthcare system at that time and stayed with them for a while and then decided it was time to move into my own and took an administrative position with a publicly traded company called Medic Incorporated and worked for them for several years, ran into some real great, sharp, bright people, and at that time I get up here into the Scranton area and the university came to me and said, hey, would you teach for us part time? And I had always been teaching on a part time basis with Penn State. So I said, sure, no, no problem. And then they convinced me it was time to leave the applied side and go over to the academic side, with an understanding that I could do console work in healthcare, and so it was a great opportunity. I was able to take my academic training, I was able to take my professional training, blend them together and really launch a real exciting career.
Speaker 1:When you mentioned Medic, I think back to my days at Graduate Hospital, when I worked with one of your peers very closely, joe Serp, and who I later also got to work with later in my career, and I think then our past might have passed somewhere during that period as well, only to have met again like 20, 25 years later.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's one of the nice things I like about healthcare is we often say what goes around comes around. Well, because there's so many great people and you get to know them and you end up attending educational programs together and attending professional meetings together, and that's what's so rewarding about this profession. It's really the people that are in the profession that make it and make it enjoyable, quite frankly.
Speaker 1:It's so true. We talk about presentations. You and I have been doing several, and I think the last one that we did was with the European Health Management Association, where we were really talking about the efforts to do accreditation for a Cami on a global basis. You've been involved in this whole process with Cami and Global for a long time. Could you just provide some historical kind of reference for our folks to understand? Cami's work on a global basis isn't something that we just started yesterday. It's something that began a long, long time ago.
Speaker 2:And it did. I mean, it's something Cami's been working at. But it was comfortable kind of moving into the global arena with Cami because of its mission statement improving the quality of health management, education, and that means really globally. And you look at the pandemic, you look at other things that are happening in healthcare and you say, hey, there really are no borders here. We're going to be working in collaborative teams across countries, and that is the world today.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't always easy on the front end convincing people. In fact it was you and I put together a white paper, a concept paper, to kind of encourage the then Cami board to really give some thought to this idea of globalization and with your help and support we were able to get that concept approved and then very thoughtfully put together an approach that used the Cami standards. And I think that's one of the things became apparent right in the front end with Cami is that their standards and criteria for accreditation fit the global arena, the global village. It's not just domestic, it's not just the US. So Cami's been out in front, I think.
Speaker 1:It was interesting because I remember the meetings that you ran with the Global Advisory Council, where we did that group which consisted from people around the globe who looked at our standards, and the ultimate endpoint was, yeah, the standards were globally around there. Dan, you did work globally, even prior to Cami. I mean, and I love when you start to talk about USAID and what you've done with programs from the former. You know the Eastern Bloc. If you would and kind of working with them, could you tell the folks a little bit about that, those efforts that you did?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was actually I'm going to use a phrase here that was a gift from Heaven and the World. Because at the university, the president at that time, father Al Panusko, put out a directive, a newsletter, said, hey, we got to do more globally. And I remember going up to his office and I said, father Panusko? I said, do you mean what you wrote? He said, absolutely, I want to see our university more and for all globally.
Speaker 2:Now that was 30 years ago, but it was at a time where countries were coming out from underneath the Soviet Union. So when you look at Ukraine and Poland, czech Republic, slovak, hungary, bulgaria, all of these countries were coming out from underneath the Soviet Union and the United States uses the United States Agency for International Development, that's their humanitarian arm, and they made a commitment to Central Eastern Europe to help these countries come out and get themselves established. And what was amazing? I mean like one day you're with the Soviet Union, the next day you're independent republic. But what ended up happening? The electricity was cut off, the international monetary funds were cut off. I mean so, these countries. If it wasn't for USAID and the American International Health Alliance, well, these countries would have not made it.
Speaker 2:But early in my career I fell in love with global health care management. I mean, it became apparent to me that there were skills that could be taught here. You know that if you work carefully with countries, again, a lot of our management concepts that have been around for 50, 60 years could nicely be applied in other countries if we put together good educational programs and work with them. And that's what got me so excited, you know, with it, and so I've been very fortunate I use the word blessed to be able to work in many countries and find some incredibly bright people who kind of see the world the same way. You know. They just want a better place for their people.
Speaker 1:And then you've got to introduce me to some of them and what you can really feel from the people that you've got to meet is that you're friends with them and I think you're colleagues, but you have their best interest in heart and, conversely, they also have your best interest in heart and you get that sense from people around the globe of your reputation and what that means.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for the kind words and you know, it really is a matter of trusting people. If you trust and respect other people, it gets returned in kind and that's the fundamental building blocks, you know, and it's hard to teach humility, it's hard to teach trust, but they're the fundamental building blocks, you know, for working with people globally. But I've been, I've been fortunate to have a lot of really great friends.
Speaker 1:No, it really cashes. Now, you know it was interesting because one of the questions, as you and I were preparing to go to Georgia, tbilisi, in Georgia one of the questions that came to my mind and was asked at when we were presenting about, you know, what can we can do in terms of accreditation, how we can help you, was the question of well, the United States has a lot of problems with its health care system. You know, arguably the most expensive health care system in the globe and some of the outcomes aren't necessarily as good as other countries that don't spend as much money. And the question that was raised to me was why should we have a US based company come here and kind of work with us?
Speaker 1:to understand, you know, is our system is our education process kind of accredited, and I think you know you and I both work through those discussions in the way that it really isn't just a one way process. Like you said, it's advanced. The quality of health care management education it's what do you do really well? What do the programs in the United States really do well? And by learning that and sharing best practices all of us get better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's an excellent point, anthony, because we all can learn together and people want to be involved with the United States because, I mean, we've got our problems but at the same time we've got a lot of good things going on and we do a lot of good research and people want to understand that and they know that the quality of our education is a high standard.
Speaker 2:And so to be able to work with us, to be able to work together and collaborate together, is a strong card in working with people. If they know you're not trying to push on them our system and I don't think we've ever approached it that way, we've kind of listened and then talked about where quality of health management education fits and I think if you approach it that way and they know you're willing to work with people with other institutions, over time you can develop a very comfortable relationship. And I think that's what you were able to do when you went to Georgia dock with people there. And I think that what we have with Cami are good standards and that we'd work with them and Cami's built things to make that possible the mentorship circle, the idea of collaborating with other people. That's all part of Cami and that's what makes it attractive, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:And when you think about Cami and where we were and again, dan, this is before your my time, but 40, 50 years ago, at the start of Cami, back in 1968, when you looked at what the Kellogg Foundation investment in Cami wanted us to do, which was to really be a global accreditor, yeah, and they really had.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you think about the foresight they had going back 40 years, 50 years. But some of the people at that time that were in leadership positions, I think, recognized that countries have got to work together and one of the sectors to work together is healthcare, because it's very transportable, number one and no matter where you go you need healthcare. And there was an early recognition of, hey, future leaders need skills. I mean, just because you're a doctor or an economist doesn't mean you can do it. You really. They understood the importance of developing skills and now we focus very heavily on competencies. But skills and attitudes and knowledge is all part of competencies. And Cami's model is excellent in that respect because it I mean, quite frankly, it focuses on the necessary competencies in the area of leadership, in the area of governance, in the area of quality, in the area of operations management. So the Cami model is very attractive because as people go through and look at competencies, they can see that it's right on. It's definitely a right on approach.
Speaker 1:When COVID hit, I think it became especially true at how these competencies were universal and how we need to work together. I mean, what was fascinating when COVID occurred? You saw how countries cooperated around the globe to kind of share information and kind of make things happen with each other and learn from each other. And then Cami, we did a white paper called competencies around the global impact of COVID-19 and I kind of examined that. For anyone listening out there you can go on to camiorg, backslash white dash papers, white papers, and you read that white paper. So, dan, let me go back. So I think you know there's always been discussions at Cami around global and where do we kind of need to move. But it was research that you were involved with with sponsored by the Airmark Charitable Fund, that really kind of focused on developing a strategy for Cami that would make sense and move us forward. Do you want to talk about that a little?
Speaker 2:Sure, I'd like to, because I think it's an important again, another important piece of Cami and that is, you know, we've tried to use research, we've tried to develop research, we've tried to engage with our Cami accredited programs to kind of understand what's going on, you know, to improve what we're doing. So we were, quite fortunate, Airmark stepped up two times with grants that enabled us to look at over 20, some countries globally, to kind of understand, you know, what was happening in the area of health management, education. And how did that relate to the market in those countries? And, you know, did they have the infrastructure? Was there this relationship between university education and the market? And we found that in many countries, yes, that's the case, but in some other countries, no, it wasn't. But it was informative.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, we also did the study where we looked at our Cami accredited programs to say, OK, what's going on? And we found that, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30, some percent were actively involved globally. And by actively involved I mean some had study abroad programs, some were teaching courses, there were faculty who were doing research between the universities, there were student exchange programs going. Now we really found that our Cami programs, accredited programs had a lot going on and that Cami research enabled us to kind of reach out. In fact, there's been a recent study done with AUPHA, which really borrowed what we had done and then tried to update it and again, again kind of found some of the same conclusions that we found back in 2011, 2012, which, again, Cami has those studies on its website and people can go to them and really see what we were trying to look at. But that was some of the foundational research that helped us move forward with global accreditation.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was an landmark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the interesting part about all that was it wasn't a high priced, multi-million dollar market on campaign worldwide. It was relationships that we just kind of worked to kind of build the process, and we went from two programs that were interested in us about becoming global credit University of Georgia and Strathmore University in Africa and Nairobi and we went from those two to now I think it's been something like 40, around 40 programs that have expressed some interest. Some of them have a site visit schedule coming up in the spring, which you are chairing, and some are in candidacy and some are still applying. But it's been interesting to watch that grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, when we first when I say we were with Cami and the board and you and other folks when we got involved, we realized we had to be strategic, we realized we had to be financially responsible as to how we were going to do it, and I think there was also a realization, even to this day, that this is going to take time to develop and mature. And it's happening little by little and, as we know, once you start in a country and the word spreads, then everyone else wants to know well, how do you do it? How can we get involved? And I think, cami, through the candidacy program that they have, it's fantastic because it gives you a way of working with people, explaining criteria, educating faculty as to what they're going to need to be able to do, and that is a very beautiful piece with Cami that they're willing to teach and work with people to kind of understand and develop this self study. That's really needed. A key piece of Cami.
Speaker 1:And that will, when you kind of look at what Cami does and our standards and the programs that are Cami accredited, that's important to the students and that helps them kind of move forward. So, dan, let me have you just kind of focus on the students. So if I'm a student and I'm going, hey, yeah, I really want to get involved globally, I want to look outside my boundaries. What should a student do?
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's several steps. Number one they should go in and look at accredited programs because we know and this discussion is pointing out people, faculty are involved. So there's a high probability you'd be able to find a university where people are interested in global healthcare management. That's step number one. Step number two there are things you can do in your graduate studies. With study abroad programs you can actually cross over Cami programs, know one another and so many times we do a lot of study abroad in our program.
Speaker 2:But I have other colleagues in Florida, outside of Pennsylvania, that call and say, hey, I got a student really wants to travel abroad.
Speaker 2:Then they take your course and I say, of course you can, because I know that they'll accept our course, work Cami accredited program elsewhere. So that's another thing you can do Really letting people know that you're interested in globalization and you want to find ways. I mean, this is where academic and career advising comes into play, where you can sit with somebody and say, hey, let's explore what the opportunities are. And I know that the United Nations, the European Union, who, a lot of international programs are looking to hire people with health management backgrounds to run projects around the world. So you can immediately begin to look at that and then most programs provide some type of fieldwork. You can do an internship or you could look for a fellowship. For example, joint Commission just offered that fellowship opportunity Big because Joint Commission has Joint Commission International. But I think the starting point is letting someone know that you're really interested and then begin to listen to faculty who walks the talk in the classroom and go see them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now good point about the Joint Commission Fellowship, because when we worked with Dr Perlin and we worked with the team at Joint Commission to create this Cami Joint Commission fellowship for sustainability, quality and safety, one of the things that they talked about was globalization. That the fellow will really need to understand what the Joint Commission does outside of the United States as well as inside, and in fact I think their concept is to provide some level of experience in there too. So it's great, I think, about Dan. You actually contributed to Cami One of your students, as are the Cami Global Fellow at one point, which brought a level of experience and breadth to our organization as we were looking at continuing this expansion in global as well.
Speaker 2:And that was an important move and again, I think it was with your leadership entity. You took on a fellow because we thought that that could be again a piece to help move us forward. So it started with our market, started with a fellowship, it started with a concept paper that you sold to the board to get started, in fact, that board meetings continually support this whole idea of globalization and also, importantly, we're willing to travel, to go there to see, to listen, to hear, and I think that speaks highly of your leadership.
Speaker 1:Thank you and your partnership and your partnership. You know I want to you know, as we kind of end. I want to end with a quote, and it's from Global Accreditation Strategies in Health Management Education. The quote begins a borderless world in higher education provides mobility of student and faculty to enhance scientific research, to redesign undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral education. Within this larger context of globalization, there's an opportunity for existing accrediting organizations to provide accreditation activities that impact the current and future development of professional health care leaders and quality of care, and I really think that sums up of what we're trying to accomplish in there.
Speaker 2:It is. It fits perfectly with the mission of CAMI in the area of health management education, because I know we realize, and I think you know students will realize very quickly how important it is to be in a graduate program that's teaching the skills, the knowledge, the competencies and, I might also say, addressing values that are going to be really important later on. Honesty, humility, I mean these are the things we talked about earlier today, and CAMI accredited programs bring that to students. But the opportunities are just expanding and almost every health care system is some way touching upon globalization. I mean, if you're into telehealth and many of our systems are actually providing management to programs outside, the United States, own hospitals outside and that's in what I call mainline health care, that pharmaceutical and infectious disease surveillance programs that we get with CDC. I mean it's all part of this globalization, this bigger community that we're all part of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well, dan, thank you very much for your time today. I think this was again a fascinating review of why global accreditation is important and why understanding what's going on in different cultures around the world are important for the future leaders of health care. So, dan, again thank you very much for coming today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and thank you for letting me talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, called globalization, the health care management. Thank you.