Skip to content
Apply
Stories

A strategic & collaborative approach to healthcare delivery

The Afford­able Care Act changed how the U.S. health­care system will func­tion. But according to Tim­othy Hoff, a newly appointed asso­ciate pro­fessor of man­age­ment, health­care sys­tems, and health policy, one imper­a­tive remains: the need to think both col­lab­o­ra­tively and strate­gi­cally in restruc­turing health­care delivery.

“The health­care reform law didn’t change that reality, it only advanced it,” said Hoff, who holds joint appoint­ments in the D’Amore-McKim School of Busi­ness and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. “There are many views taken into account around the health­care policy table—there’s the patient, there’s the clin­i­cian, and there’s the organization—and everyone has to begin to realize we’re working with a fixed pool of resources, and that we don’t have the system yet in place for meeting the needs of health reform. These two real­i­ties will shape what it is we have to do.”

Hoff studies health pro­fes­sionals and how busi­ness thinking and prin­ci­ples apply to health­care sys­tems. In par­tic­ular, he explores the area of pri­mary care, a system already strained by a growing elderly pop­u­la­tion and one expected to see a mas­sive surge in demand under new fed­eral and state health­care reforms. He has written sev­eral op-​​eds and schol­arly arti­cles on the trans­for­ma­tion of the Amer­ican health­care system, including a recent com­men­tary for the Amer­ican Journal of Man­aged Care.

“In pri­mary care, there are not enough physi­cians to meet the need, espe­cially after giving mil­lions more people access to insur­ance under health­care reform, and placing greater emphasis on keeping indi­vid­uals healthy,” Hoff said. “We must make some very real and pro­found changes to that part of the system.”

For instance, struc­tural changes in the delivery of pri­mary care may include empow­ering phar­ma­cists and nurses to make doc­tors’ deci­sions. “There won’t be enough doc­tors and tra­di­tional prac­tices to go to,” Hoff explained, noting the poten­tial rise of walk-​​in clinics in super­mar­kets and pharmacies.

Prior to joining the North­eastern fac­ulty, Hoff was an asso­ciate pro­fessor at the Uni­ver­sity at Albany, SUNY, where he also earned his doc­torate in public admin­is­tra­tion and policy. He said he chose North­eastern in part because of its com­mit­ment to health-​​related research and ini­tia­tives and its strong ties to the health­care com­mu­nity in Boston and Mass­a­chu­setts, which enacted sim­ilar health­care leg­is­la­tion sev­eral years before the fed­eral government.

“The Boston area is the center of the U.S. health­care uni­verse,” said Hoff. “The state is doing a lot of things we’re going to expect the rest of the country to do down the road. It’s a real leader on the national stage.”

Hoff looks for­ward to working with stu­dents in a variety of dis­ci­plines, a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach that will define how health­care func­tions in the future. “I think there’s great ben­efit that comes from bringing in a lot of dif­ferent perspectives—business, public health, clin­ical, consumer—and having a real, holistic dia­logue about how to improve health­care,” Hoff said.

“There’s no doubt we can do a lot of things better, and busi­ness ideas and inno­va­tions will cer­tainly help,” he added. “But that rela­tion­ship between the patient and the provider must always be at the center of what everyone is thinking about.”

– by Matt Collette

More Stories

Photo of the Capitol Building at night

High stakes for politics, SCOTUS in 2018

01.04.2018
Photo of the crashed truck that was used in the October 31st attack in Manhattan.

Weaponizing Language: How the meaning of “allahu akbar” has been distorted

11.08.2017
Northeastern logo

Why I love studying Spanish

05.29.20
Uncategorized