An educational partnership that began in 2011 between the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas and several prominent healthcare organizations in Texas has equipped more than 300 physicians and staff members from prominent organizations such as UT Southwestern Medical Center, Parkland Health and Texas Health Resources to become better business leaders.
Since beginning partnerships with organizations in the North Texas region, the program has widened its reach in Texas. This past December, the first combined Houston cohort from Harris Health System, UTHealth Houston, and Baylor College of Medicine graduated.
Over the past decade-and-a-half, the program has blossomed into an EMBA with an emphasis on Healthcare Organization Leadership, an innovative new 42-hour credit program recently approved by the UT System that teaches business leadership and organizational development to physicians and other C-suite aspirants in a complex industry that needs these skills now more than ever.
“Our program has had a major influence on all our partners in terms of positively impacting their organizations’ productivity,” said Dr. Robert Hicks, a clinical professor and director of the Organizational Behavior, Coaching and Consulting degree and certificate programs in the Jindal School’s Executive Education Area.
From the outset nearly 15 years ago, Hicks said the program’s goals have been three-fold: First, equip current and future leaders to better manage and lead within their healthcare organizations by providing a superb academic education focused on the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to achieve that goal. Second, create an organizational development experience whereby people who work together – both physicians and staff – complete the program as an internal cohort and, in the process, increase their teamwork and acquire a network of professional relationships across the organization that will help them in their future endeavors. According to Hicks, the professional bonds that are developed during their time together prove to be “fruitful relationships, that last far beyond finishing the program.”
The third goal, Hicks said, is to give back to the organization by applying what was learned during the educational process to a project of strategic importance to the organization.
“This project is pre-approved by senior leadership, and the results are presented to senior leadership as a capstone project signaling the completion of their education,” he said. “Selected projects are then implemented within the organization.”
Students from the recently graduated Houston cohort have sung the program’s praises. Dr. Edtrina Moss, EMBA’24, a practicing registered nurse with a PhD in Nursing Science who works for Harris Health System as a senior performance improvement specialist registered nurse, said her journey has been both rigorous and rewarding.
“The program has equipped me with invaluable skills in strategic leadership, healthcare management, and operational efficiency to think strategically and approach complex healthcare challenges with innovative solutions,” she said. “The opportunity to blend my clinical expertise with executive-level education has been invaluable in advancing my ability to drive organizational change and improve patient outcomes. Graduating in December 2024 with the Scholar of Distinction honor is a testament to my dedication to excellence, continuous learning, and commitment to shaping the future of healthcare leadership.”
Samantha Raffield, EMBA’2024, director of payroll services at Harris Health System, said the program catalyzed her personal and professional growth.
“The unwavering support of Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health System, and the entire UTD faculty fostered a dynamic learning environment, even remotely,” she said. “This experience has equipped me with the skills and knowledge to excel in future endeavors.”
Porsa, who earned his Healthcare Leadership MBA from UT Dallas in 2017 and was previously at Parkland, was instrumental in getting the Harris Health program started with UT Dallas. His experience with Hicks’ program played no small part in that.
“The first class that I attended as the inaugural MBA cohort at Parkland was ‘coaching as a leadership style,’” he said. “This topic may be obvious to some, but it was not to me, not at that time anyway. I remember thinking how much more successful I would have been (and how many mistakes I would have been able to avoid) if I had the benefit of the training I received from that course alone. I also believe that as full-time employees, many of us as leaders in our organization, the desire to continue one’s professional growth brings an entirely different level of commitment and exuberance to the cohort class, one that, in my opinion, has remained unmatched from any other training I have ever received.”
Porsa said that performing well in his duties and his commitment to the success of his organization were what got him his first leadership position, even though he has not gotten any structured leadership development training.
“This is where the Healthcare Leadership MBA was so crucially important,” he said. “In addition to learning from the courses in statistics, finance, management, strategy, etc., I learned about how to be a better leader and, in fact, even a better person. To this day, I use many of my learnings from this training in my personal life when interacting with friends and loved ones.”
The positive leadership transformations Porsa has seen at both Parkland and Harris Health from fellow alums of the Healthcare Leadership MBA are too numerous to count.
“Many of my cohort members have moved up in higher leadership positions at Parkland and other health systems,” he said. “More importantly, many of the capstone projects that the health care leadership students have submitted have resulted in improvements in our ability to serve our patients either by increasing the efficiency or the effectiveness of the care delivery or by improving quality and patient safety.”
Hicks said he continues to nurture these partnerships with healthcare organizations, and the program will remain to be a development initiative that takes leadership and staff with high leadership potential and equips them with the academic tools needed to operate the business side of healthcare.
