Melinda Seering, MD, clinical assistant professor of anesthesia (third from left in photo), and four other members of the University of Iowa Health Care family recently earned their Master of Health Care Delivery Science degrees from Dartmouth College. The program teaches effective strategies for leadership and value-based healthcare that is scientifically, ethically and managerially sound.

Seering says the 18-month program allowed her “to grow through personal leadership development and action-learning projects, and develop a new network of colleagues with the same agenda” of improving value to patients while keeping costs under control.

Even though she and her colleagues have earned their degrees, their work together will continue for the next three years as they complete their final “action-learning” project – a collaboration with UI and Medtronic’s Value Based Health Care Division to improve spine care at UIHC through a bundled payment model (in which providers and/or healthcare facilities are paid a single payment for all services performed to treat a patient during a specific timeframe or for a specific need, such as orthopedic surgery).

“It’s really empowering to be able to put ideas and learning to work on a project like this,” Seering says. “I’m looking forward to what we can learn from this collaboration.”

Seering's cohort for the program included Patty Stolley, RN, Nurse Manager in the UIHC Orthopedic Clinic; Andrew Pugely, MD, orthopedic spine surgeon, UIHC; Ben Hall, OR Hospital Administrator, Peri-operative Services, UIHC; Natalie Glass, PhD., research scientist, Orthopedics, UIHC; and Jason Vanderheyden, Medtronic, National Director of Value Based Health Care, Canada.