Dartmouth to start health care delivery research center

"Dartmouth College is getting $35 million to open a center it hopes will help the nation take the next big steps in health care reform: improving quality while lowering costs," The Associated Press reports. "'[T]he real rocket science in health care right now is in the delivery,' said Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim, who has been promoting the idea of a national institute on health care delivery since arriving at Dartmouth last July." The new Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science "will bring together experts in everything from medicine and management to sociology and systems engineering to figure out what is working in successful health care systems such as Minnesota's Mayo Clinic. They'll then teach practitioners, who can return home and make changes immediately, Kim said…. The center also will be home to a new master's degree in health care delivery science, which will begin enrolling students in July 2011" (Ramer, 5/17).

The Washington Post has a related op-ed from Dartmouth's Jim Yong Kim and James Weinstein: "Health Reform's Next Test" (5/17). It's included in today Morning Edition.

Union Leader: "The degree will be offered jointly by The Dartmouth Institute and the Tuck School of Business with a focus on 'discovery and analysis of innovations and real-time implementation in health care,' officials said. Executive education and distance learning will also be a part of the new degree program, scheduled to enroll its first class in July 2011, officials said. Eventually, undergraduate studies in the field will also be available. Once the curriculum is set, Kim said, the school will also offer classes to health care providers already in the field and will test out some of the cost-saving practices the center generates on Dartmouth employees" (Plenda, 5/17).