Huron Consulting Group, a Chicago-based operations consultancy, recently expanded its education and health services practice with the additions of Dr. Robert Crone and Kathleen Gallagher. The two have extensive histories working with academic medical centers and now will be consulting for them through Huron. The staff additions further highlight Huron's investment in its education and health services practice. In January 2007, Huron acquired Wellspring Partners LTD, a management consulting firm specializing in integrated performance improvement services for hospitals and health systems.
Crone and Gallagher bring decades of experience to Huron. Gallagher has worked as a nurse as well as a consultant for CSC Healthcare. She most recently spent three years as vice dean at the New York University School of Medicine.
Crone, meanwhile, has worked as a pediatrician, anesthesiologist and pediatric intensive care specialist. He also ran pediatric intensive care units at Boston Children's Hospital and at the University of Washington and served as medical director for Washington, D.C.-based Project Hope, a private voluntary organization, and later started Harvard Medical International, a nonprofit subsidiary of Harvard Medical School.
Gallagher says their backgrounds are particularly helpful in accomplishing goals at these centers "because you're speaking the same language," she says. Gallagher says what's notable is that these centers' challenges are the same ones that most businesses—regardless of sector—have. These centers not only face regulatory and compliance issues, but also a much-publicized talent shortage.
"I think that virtually all areas of the traditional triple mission [education, clinical and research] of the academic health center are under increasing stress," Crone adds, citing the workforce shortage, the pressure to "do more and for it to cost less" in terms of patient care, and the shortage of emerging research as all threats to the bottom line. And that makes consulting to these centers a multi-front war.
Crone says that while the Huron practice is largely U.S. centric now, he's excited about expanding. "We live in a country of what, 350 million people? If one looks around the world into the emerging economies … we have another 4.5 billion people who are demanding higher and higher quality healthcare. So the successes that have occurred in the U.S. are going to be replicated around the world, and Huron has the opportunity to not only capitalize on its successes in the U.S., but to create a model that supports this similar kind of quest for excellence in other key locations around the world."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.