Mays Impacts

Sunjay Letchuman ’22, a senior at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, is the lead author on the article, “Revise the IRS’s Nonprofit Hospital Community Benefit Reporting Standard,” published April 15, 2022 in Health Affairs Forefront, a preeminent journal for healthcare policy.

Letchuman co-authored this article with his mentor, Dr. Leonard L. Berry, Mays Business School’s University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, along with Dr. Michael K. Hole, executive director of The Impact Factory and assistant professor at The University of Texas, and Dr. Ge Bai, professor of accounting at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

Letchuman now has had four published articles and a fifth under review while an undergraduate student at Texas A&M. “It is unusual for an undergrad to publish an article regardless of where he or she is placed in the byline. To be the lead author for an article in which the other authors are MDs or Ph.Ds. means that Sunjay earned the placement by leading the way throughout,” Berry said. “Dr. Hole, Dr. Bai, and I have plenty of experience researching and writing articles and we pitched in during the cycle of multiple drafts, but Sunjay earned the lead author spot on his own merits.”

The article’s publication in Forefront offers the co-authors an important opportunity to inform and influence healthcare policymakers and industry leaders.  “Appearing in the leading health policy journal, this article may actually lead to revision of the Community Benefit Standard, which, in turn, will enhance nonprofit hospitals’ involvement and investment in improving community health,” Berry said.

This paper analyzed the Community Benefit Standard, which is used by the Internal Revenue Service to determine whether a hospital qualifies as a nonprofit. “Over half of U.S. hospitals are organized as nonprofits, meaning they do not pay taxes in exchange for benefiting community health,” Letchuman said. “Unfortunately, however, most nonprofit hospitals do not provide more community benefit than their for-profit counterparts. A recent study showed that, for every $100 of total expenses, nonprofit hospitals spend just $2.30 on charity care (a key component of community benefit)—substantially less than the $3.80 of every $100 spent by for-profit hospitals.”

The co-authors suggest changes to the Community Benefit Standard in order to make nonprofit hospitals more accountable for enhancing the community’s health and welfare.  “The federal, state, and local tax exemptions that nonprofit hospitals receive amount to over $25 billion annually. Local property tax dollars that nonprofit hospitals would have paid could have been used to build parks, improve schools, fix roads, and offer other services that bolster public health,” Letchuman said. “Our article describes which of the Community Benefit Standard’s 10 current standards should be kept, modified, or removed, and we include 3 new standards to add. Policymakers can use our article as a guide to strengthen current policy to ensure nonprofit hospitals fulfill their stated mission of promoting the health and well-being of the communities they serve.”

The article also reinforces the role that nonprofit hospitals can play in community wellbeing. “One of the biggest takeaways from this article is that nonprofit hospitals should focus on promoting and achieving community health equity, which means everyone has a fair opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires the dismantling of barriers to good health, including poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, such as access to stable housing and education,” Letchuman said. “As anchors in their communities, nonprofit hospitals can and should dedicate at least some of their surplus funds to address the social determinants of health, and they should make the value of their tax exemptions transparent to allow the public to evaluate the adequacy of community benefits provided.”

These publishing opportunities give Letchuman, who will enroll in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the fall and plans to devote a part of his career to influencing healthcare policy, the chance to work with and learn from some of the world’s leading researchers. “I am humbled and constantly inspired by the researchers I get to work with,” the Mays student said. “These professors and researchers are doing the work I want to do one day—making high-quality healthcare more accessible to every American. It’s a privilege for me to learn from and work with my role models.”

His co-authors have been equally impressed with the Aggie’s work. “I am certain Sunjay will change the world for good, and I’m grateful I’ve had the chance to watch his rocket-ship career take off,” Hole said. “How fun, too, collaborating across “rival” institutions; we are certainly stronger together.”

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Explore more on Sunjay:

• Watch: Sunjay Letchuman ’22 & Dr. Leonard L. Berry
• Poets & Quants Best & Brightest
• Mays Student Aims To Provide Better Care For All

Dr. Leonard L. Berry and The Honorable Nancy Berry have established the Dr. Leonard L. Berry Chair in Services Marketing at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School through a $1 million gift to the Texas A&M Foundation. This endowed faculty chair will enhance Mays’ Department of Marketing’s efforts to attract and retain a leading senior faculty member who can help the school move forward to reach its vision to advance the world’s prosperity by creating a better future though improved service.

Creating the endowed chair is a milestone in Dr. Berry’s nearly 40-year tenure at Texas A&M. “I have loved being a faculty member at Texas A&M. It’s an outstanding university and I’ve had a wonderful career here,” he said. “I was raised to always give back and this is a way that I wanted to give back to my university, to my department, to my colleagues and to tangibly say thank you for the opportunity that I’ve had to build a career here at Mays Business School.”

The Berry’s said their decision to create the chair was made during a short conversation that spanned only a few minutes. “When you live in a place, you want it to be the best place possible. My philosophy is if I want it to be better, I need to work to make it better,” said Nancy Berry, who noted that service is an integral part of the couple’s lives. “Len’s research is focused on what services can do to help humanity and improve the quality of life. That’s what I’ve tried to do as well.”

The Berry’s’ gift is the first Mays endowed chair established by a current Mays faculty member. “We have many Mays faculty and staff who support our school by gifting some of their treasured resources to us. The Berry gift is unique, though, in that it is the first endowed chair established by a faculty member and in this instance, his spouse,” said Mays Interim Dean R. Duane Ireland. “Faculty and staff committing their resources in any form, but perhaps especially in the form of an endowed position, demonstrates to all who are committed to Mays’ success that those of us working within Mays Business School are willing to join others to provide gifts that support our work in terms of research, teaching, and service.”

The creation of the endowed chair extends Dr. Berry’s marketing legacy. “This endowed position recognizes and honors the long-term contributions of Dr. Berry to the field of services marketing,” said Dr. Manjit Yadav, head of Mays’ Department of Marketing. “His groundbreaking work in the area of service quality has impacted scholarship and practice worldwide. As the service-based economy continues to expand in the 21st century, this endowed position will ensure that the Department of Marketing at Mays Business School continues to be an academic leader in the area of services marketing.”

A Services Marketing Pioneer

Dr. Berry was recruited from the University of Virginia in 1982 to serve as the founding director of Mays’ Center for Retailing Studies. When he joined Mays, services marketing and service quality improvement had yet to develop as areas of research. At that time, marketing faculty did not recognize the different challenges in marketing a tangible product, such as an automobile or a food product, versus an intangible service, such as transportation, healthcare, and telecommunications. The fields of services marketing and service quality did not exist. Berry’s work, along with two Mays marketing colleagues, A. Parasuraman and Valarie Zeithaml, in concert with a small group of other researchers around the world, began to change this perspective.

A development leave in 2001-2002 at the prestigious Mayo Clinic proved to be a watershed moment in Dr. Berry’s career. Afterwards, the respected professor decided to shift his focus to pioneer the study of service quality improvement in healthcare. His healthcare research has been published in numerous prestigious medical journals, including Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Journal of Oncology Practice He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, where he studies service improvement in cancer care for patients and their families.

Dr. Berry continues to have a very productive research career. He currently is the most cited Texas A&M University faculty member on Google Scholar, with 231,414 citations as of December 7, 2021. He also has co-authored 10 books, including the best-selling book, “Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic.”

Over the years, both Texas A&M and Mays have recognized Dr. Berry for his professional contributions. He holds the M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership and has been named a University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, a Regents Professor, and a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence.

Dr. Berry also has received significant external accolades from the American Marketing Association (AMA) and other entities during his career, including being the second individual ever to receive each of the “Big 4 Marketing Awards”: The Sheth Foundation Medal in 2018, the AMA William L. Wilkie “Marketing for a Better World” Award in 2018, the AMA Paul D. Converse Award in 2008, and the AMA/McGraw-Hill/Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award in 2007.

Dr. Berry’s work has not only influenced scholars, students, and the industry, but also his wife in her current work as a Brazos County Commissioner and member of numerous Brazos Valley non-profit boards, as well as in her previous role as Mayor of the City of College Station. “I’ve read most of Len’s work and it’s been significant and meaningful,” she said. “His contribution is irrefutable.”

The endowed chair will help Mays continue Dr. Berry’s groundbreaking work in the field of services marketing. “I want there always to be a senior scholar in the marketing department that specializes in services marketing,” Dr. Berry said. “In a sense, I am making the gift to help create a succession plan for myself because I won’t be here forever. I want our work and our reputation in services to continue.”

>>> Add your response to the announcement on LinkedIn!

Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and leading health and well-being company Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) have announced the winners of the 2021 Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Case Competition, a competition during which students use their analytical abilities to solve a real-world business problem. The student team of Siyan Cai, Jia Shi, Manqiu Liu, and Tsz Fung Pang from Georgia Tech received the First-Place prize of $50,000 following a virtual presentation on Nov. 11 to an executive panel of judges.

This is the fifth year of the competition, which has grown to be one of the top healthcare analytics case competitions in the country. Over 750 master’s level students, representing 75 major universities in the U.S., registered for the national competition to compete for $80,000 in total prizes. The Second-Place prize of $20,000 was awarded to Alejandro Sáez Coma and Ignacio Aguilar Ramos from New York University (NYU), while the Third-Place prize of $10,000 was presented to Eunjin Jeong, Yuxuan Mei, Ji Qi, and Linh To from Boston University.

The student teams examined a multifaceted and complex real-world business problem.  This year’s competition focused on providing vaccination opportunities for vulnerable and underserved populations, as existing disparities in health equity have become more evident during the vaccination response to COVID-19.

Students were asked to create a model to predict vaccine hesitance among a specific population. The students’ challenge was to propose solutions so that Humana can design a targeted outreach that prioritizes the most vulnerable and underserved populations to receive health solutions.

“By materializing our commitment to minimizing health inequities and mitigating bias, we are leveraging prescriptive analytics and predictive modeling to reach our most at-risk and hesitant member populations,” said Heather Cox, Chief Digital Health and Analytics Officer for Humana.  “This year’s participants have shown great dedication to identifying populations and creating elegant solutions that drive forth positive change. This is just one glimpse into the transformative power of quality data.”

“I am pleased that the students’ analyses will help Humana shape the way the industry delivers healthcare,” says Arvind Mahajan, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at Mays Business School. “This case study is an example of how students learn to apply their analytical skills to solve complex business problems which can have a social impact, and in this case, improve the lives of patients and their families.”

The fifth annual competition was held virtually and was open to all accredited educational institutions based in the United States. Full-time and part-time master’s students from accredited Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Information Systems, Master of Public Health, Master of Business Administration programs, or other similar master’s programs in business, healthcare, or analytics, were eligible to enter.

The teams were judged based on the following criteria:

• Quantitative analysis identifying key business insights
• Professionalism, data visualization, and presentation skills
• Ability to provide meaningful implications and recommendations based on results/insights

Prior top winners include the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (2020); University of California, Los Angeles (2018 & 2019); and Purdue University (2017).

For more information, visit HumanaTAMUAnalytics.com.

About Mays Business School

At Mays Business School, we strive to advance the world’s prosperity. Our mission is to be a vibrant learning organization that creates impactful knowledge and develops transformational leaders. Mays Business School educates nearly 6,300 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in accounting, finance, information systems and operations management, management, and marketing. Mays ranks consistently among the top public business schools in the country for its programs and for faculty research.

About Humana

Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is committed to helping our millions of medical and specialty members achieve their best health. Our successful history in care delivery and health plan administration is helping us create a new kind of integrated care with the power to improve health and well-being and lower costs. Our efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large.

To accomplish that, we support physicians and other health care professionals as they work to deliver the right care in the right place for their patients, our members. Our range of clinical capabilities, resources and tools – such as in-home care, behavioral health, pharmacy services, data analytics and wellness solutions – combine to produce a simplified experience that makes health care easier to navigate and more effective.

More information regarding Humana is available to investors via the Investor Relations page of the company’s web site at www.humana.com, including copies of:

• Annual reports to stockholders
• Securities and Exchange Commission filings
• Most recent investor conference presentations
• Quarterly earnings news releases and conference calls
• Calendar of events
• Corporate Governance information

August 31, 2021 – Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and leading health and well-being company Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) are launching the 2021 Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Case Competition to showcase students’ analytical abilities to solve a real-world business problem. The prize package for the winning teams has increased to $80,000, with $50,000 for first place, $20,000 for second place, and $10,000 for third place.

The fifth annual competition will be held virtually and is open to all accredited educational institutions based in the United States. Full-time and part-time master’s students from accredited Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Information Systems, Master of Public Health, Master of Business Administration programs, or other similar master’s programs in business, healthcare, or analytics, are eligible to enter. Students are invited to create teams of two to four to tackle a real-world case. Each team can only include students from the same school.

“Healthcare is one of the three grand challenges established at Mays during our strategic planning process. This process also yielded our vision, which is “to advance the world’s prosperity,” said Duane Ireland, interim dean of Mays Business School. “The national analytics competition is an important part of our commitment to address healthcare issues. Enhancing the quality of this competition is the fact that it attracts the brightest graduate students from across the country. Using real-world, anonymized data in the case, the analyses students complete create high-impact learning opportunities for them while influencing the future of the dynamic healthcare industry.”

“At Humana, we’re passionate about helping our members achieve their best health. We’re excited about the opportunity to partner with my alma mater Texas A&M University on this unique real-world experience for students,” said Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard. “We recognize healthcare can be challenging and complex. The future of health care depends greatly upon data analytics as a means of creating personalized experiences and designing a better system for our members – one that’s simple to navigate, connected and contributes to better health outcomes.”

The teams will be judged based on the following criteria:

• Quantitative analysis identifying key business insights
• Professionalism, data visualization, and presentation skills
• Ability to provide meaningful implications and recommendations based on results/insights

Key dates for 2021 participants include:

• Sept. 8: Virtual kickoff call for prospective participants
• Sept. 17: Team registration due
• Sept. 24: Virtual Q&A session with competition leadership
• Oct. 10: Completed team analysis due
• Oct. 22: Finalists selected and notified
• Nov. 11: Virtual presentations to executive panel; winners announced

Prior top winners include The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (2020); University of California, Los Angeles (2018 & 2019); and Purdue University (2017).

See official rules and guidelines for more information.

About Mays Business School

At Mays Business School, we strive to advance the world’s prosperity. Our mission is to be a vibrant learning organization that creates impactful knowledge and develops transformational leaders. Mays Business School educates nearly 6,300 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing, and supply chain management. Mays ranks consistently among the top public business schools in the country for its programs and for faculty research.

About Humana

Humana Inc. is committed to helping our millions of medical and specialty members achieve their best health. Our successful history in care delivery and health plan administration is helping us create a new kind of integrated care with the power to improve health and well-being and lower costs. Our efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large.

To accomplish that, we support physicians and other health care professionals as they work to deliver the right care in the right place for their patients, our members. Our range of clinical capabilities, resources and tools – such as in-home care, behavioral health, pharmacy services, data analytics and wellness solutions – combine to produce a simplified experience with the goal of making health care easier to navigate and more effective.

More information regarding Humana is available to investors via the Investor Relations page of the company’s website at humana.com, including copies of:

• Annual reports to stockholders
• Securities and Exchange Commission filings
• Most recent investor conference presentations
• Quarterly earnings news releases and conference calls
• Calendar of events
• Corporate Governance information.

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Texas A&M University junior Sunjay Letchuman ’22 is the first Mays Business School undergraduate to have a manuscript published in a major medical journal.  He co-authored the article, “Trust-Based Partnerships Are Essential—and Achievable—in Healthcare Service,” with Dr. Leonard L. Berry, who holds the M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership, and two leading clinicians. The article will appear in the June 2 issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Letchuman, who is enrolled in Mays’ Business Honors program, appreciated the support and guidance he received from Berry. “Publishing in a journal like Mayo Clinic Proceedings is essentially an unattainable achievement for an undergraduate student, so this has been an enormous privilege for me. Texas A&M professors perform top-tier research all across campus, and it is rewarding for Texas A&M students to perform any kind of research here,” said the Texas A&M’s University Scholar and Undergraduate Research Scholar. “But working with Dr. Berry is a distinct honor. Dr. Berry is a leader in improving healthcare service, and his work has been cited more times than any other Texas A&M professor. For a student like me who is committed to learning how to improve our healthcare industry, working with Dr. Berry is a dream come true.”

The article also marks the first time that Berry, a University Distinguished Professor and Regents Professor, has published an article with an undergraduate. “Sunjay is one of the finest students I have taught in my career—extremely smart but also intellectually curious, intuitive, and a hard worker,” said Berry, who also serves as a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, MA. “Following the end of the healthcare course he took from me he asked if he could collaborate on a future article; I had never collaborated with an undergraduate student before on research. But if I was ever going to do it, he was the student.”

Creating the manuscript also gave Letchuman, who is accepted to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the opportunity to work with two leading clinicians:

• Rana L.A. Awdish, the director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program for the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine of Henry Ford Health System. She also serves as the medical director for Care Experience at Henry Ford Health System.
• Karina Dahl Steffensen, a medical oncologist, and professor, and director of the Center for Shared Decision Making in the Department of Clinical Oncology at Vejle Hospital in Vejle, Denmark.

The co-authors’ article suggests that creating trust-based partnerships between patients and the clinicians who care for them have never been more important as the world’s healthcare systems continue to be challenged by the coronavirus pandemic. Offering a vision for healthcare’s role as a service provider, the paper’s core argument is that patients’ trust of their doctors is about more than the science.  The co-authors write, “…excellent healthcare requires more than mere trust in clinicians’ professional ability; it centers on both competence and partnership. This multidimensional trust involves patients’ confidence that a clinician is interested in them as a person, not just as a patient; will be a reliable, caring partner in preventing, diagnosing, and treating disease; and will offer support when curative treatment is not possible.”

This renewed focus on trust between clinicians and patients was underscored during the COVID-19 pandemic when clinicians were placed in a role of providing extraordinary support and clear communication when families were unable to enter intensive care units. The co-authors argued that the role of trust is a central issue in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines since many members of racial and ethnic minority groups have long-standing—and well-founded—concerns about healthcare.

The co-authors believe that creating and nourishing this deeper level of partnership between clinicians and patients will require the implementation of four, interrelated service-quality concepts: empathetic creativity, discretionary effort, seamless service, and mitigation of fear.

Health organizations that prioritize these concepts proactively adopt key institutional policies and procedures, including investing in organizational culture; hiring health professionals based on their values as well as their skills; promoting continuous learning; honoring the importance of language in all care interactions; offering patients “go-to” sources that provide timely assistance; and creating systems and structures that are designed to encourage trust.

Letchuman, who will have a health policy internship with the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in summer 2021, plans to use what he is learning at Mays to support his medical career and to influence healthcare policy. “The paper we wrote really boils down to how we can practice better medicine by improving trust between patients and clinicians. As a future clinician, it will be my duty to implement the service concepts and practices outlined in our paper,” he said. “In a broader sense, working on this paper has taught me the value of bringing a humanistic, empathy-driven approach to improving patient care. These are lessons that I will carry forward in my own career. By designating healthcare as one of its three Grand Challenges, the Mays Business School has cultivated an environment where business students are driven to make a difference in healthcare.”

Mays MBA Student Leads Aggie Team That Earns 3rd Place in International Case Competition Focused on Addressing International Food Production Problems

A Texas A&M University interdisciplinary team led by Mays Business School Full-Time MBA student Ryan Staples ’22 earned third place in the 2021 Norwegian Business School Global Case Competition. The Aggie team–which included Danette Philpot, Garrett Brogan, and Meikah Dado, who are graduate students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Agriculture Leadership, Education and Communications—earned this international recognition by proposing an innovative use of technology to improve food production in Uganda by empowering women.

The Mays-sponsored group competed against 85 teams from 60 top-tier universities to generate game-changing solutions to food production issues involving obesity, malnutrition, and climate change. These topics will be discussed at the United Nations Food Systems Summit in Fall 2021.

Uganda

Once the case problem was released, Texas A&M’s team decided to focus on Uganda, which Brogan had visited through his studies. That focus was important because more than one of every three Ugandans suffer from chronic malnutrition.

This issue is compounded because the nation has a significant gender inequality issue in its food production system. Eighty percent of the food consumed by the nation’s residents is produced by women. However, for every one pound of food produced by a woman in Uganda, a man can produce three. “Our whole idea is how can we bridge this knowledge and gender gap between men and women so that the country of Uganda can produce more food,” Staples said. “With 80% of the food producers only one-third as productive as their counterparts, there is a huge area of opportunity. “

Tech Solution

The team proposed providing the women farmers with electronic tablets filled with agricultural knowledge so they can become empowered. Using technology allows the nation’s women farmers–who often do not attend extension programs because they are doing the farm work and caring for the children and elderly—to have ready access to extension resources, such as videos. “This is supplying them with knowledge so they can help themselves,” Dado said. “It is a bottom-up approach.”

The team projects that if this initiative is implemented over a 10-year period, 3 million women would be empowered. This would lead to a 30% increase in overall agriculture productivity and a $450 million boost to Uganda’s GDP.

Interdisciplinary Aggies

The Aggie team, which was the top-performing team among North American and South American colleges and universities, benefitted from the support by Mays Business School faculty members Dr. Daniel Usera and Dr. Mary Lea McAnally and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Dr. Jack Elliott, a professor and senior scientist at the university’s renowned Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. These faculty members were able to provide feedback before the team moved into the semifinal round of the case competition.

Staples believes that the team’s interdisciplinary representation was critical to the Aggies’ third place finish. “Our success was truly a testament to the power of synergistic team effort,” he said. “The true kudos go to my three new friends in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who shared this case competition journey with me.”

His counterparts agreed and appreciated Staples’ openness to learning about agriculture and his facilitation and leadership skills. “Ryan had knowledge in so many different ways that we didn’t have, but we had that knowledge of the agriculture aspect,” Dado said. “We were able to come together, and I do not think we would have been as successful if we hadn’t been interdisciplinary.”

Go to Market Plans

The Aggies are now seeking ways to bring their idea to the marketplace. They have presented to the Borlaug Institute’s director and senior faculty, who have offered positive feedback and are considering including the project in future grant proposals. In addition, Staples is using Mays’ contacts to pitch to Fortune 500 companies about corporate funding. The team also may receive an invitation to present at the United Nations Food Systems Summit.

These types of high-impact learning experiences that challenge Mays students to solve real-world problems are aligned with Mays’ vision to advance the world’s prosperity. “Case competitions offer students the opportunity to practice being transformational leaders through combining theory, research, and practical application while working in a team,” said Mays Associate Dean for Graduate Programs Arvind Mahajan. “We feel so strongly about the power of these learning experiences that Mays collaborates annually with Humana Inc. to host the Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Case Competition, which challenges 1,300 U.S. masters-level students to analyze the company’s data to identify innovative healthcare solutions.”

Ultimately, Staples credits Mays Full-Time MBA program for helping to polish his leadership skills to be able to successfully focus the team’s efforts. “The program helped me first to identify my leadership strengths, and then taught me how to leverage them. Apart from that, I have had the opportunity to lead team projects among my peers since last July,” Staples said. “The combination of understanding the unique skills I possess and the practical opportunity to practice those skills has been invaluable to my development as a leader.”

An article by Dr. Leonard L. Berry, Mays Business School’s University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, and his coauthors was recognized as the Distinguished Winner of the American Marketing Association (AMA) and EBSCO Responsible Research in Marketing Award. This award, also sponsored by the Sheth Foundation and Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM), honors outstanding research that produces both credible and useful knowledge that will benefit society.

The AMA/EBSCO award recognizes Berry, who was the lead author in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings article, “When Patients and Families Feel Like Hostages to Health Care.” The Texas A&M University Regents Professor co-authored this article with Tracey S. Danaher of Monash University, Dan Beckham of the Beckham Company, Rana L. A. Awdish of the Henry Ford Health System, and Kedar S. Mate of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

This paper is unique in that the study was published in a journal outside of the academic marketing community. “This is a best paper award in marketing, but it’s drawn from a medical journal, which is very unusual,” said Berry, who is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “What’s exciting is that colleagues in the marketing community who do not read medical journals will now know of the article because it is quite relevant to marketing topics – particularly consumer behavior and service marketing – that we teach in business schools.”

The paper’s diverse group of co-authors – two marketing professors, a healthcare consultant, and two physicians – was instrumental in crafting an article on this unusual topic. Some of the journal editors were understandably wary of publishing an article on the potentially controversial topic of “patients as hostages” but the authors persevered through the review and revision process and Berry credits the journal for publishing the article. It turned out that the authors received many favorable comments from physician readers after publication, as much of the paper’s content offers guidance on how to help patients feel safe in communicating candidly with their doctors. Berry hopes that his research in healthcare may encourage other business school faculty to do more of their research in healthcare.

Berry’s prolific research into healthcare and service quality also has played a foundational role in the identification of healthcare as one of Mays’ three Grand Challenges in the school’s 2017-2021 Strategic Plan. “Len Berry’s research program in healthcare has initiated an important conversation in Mays Business School about the societal impact of our professional endeavors,” said Dr. Manjit Yadav, head of the Department of Marketing at Mays. “This conversation, over the long-term, has the potential to significantly enhance our national and international reputation. The AMA/EBSCO award is a wonderful recognition of the impact that Len is having in marketing and the medical community.”

The Responsible Research in Marketing Award recognizes studies that exemplify RRBM’s definition of responsible research, which is built on a foundation of seven principles:

• Developing knowledge that benefits both business and the broader society to create a better world.
• Contributing to fundamental theoretical knowledge as well as application to address pressing and current issues.
• Valuing interdisciplinary collaboration and diverse research approaches to reflect the multiple and complex problems facing business and society.
• Implementing sound scientific methods and processes in the research undertaken.
• Engaging stakeholders in the research process without compromising the independence of the study.
• Creating an impact on diverse stakeholders that can contribute to better business and a better world.
• Using diverse forms of knowledge dissemination that collectively advance basic knowledge and practice.

Additionally, the term “useful knowledge” recognizes that the research addresses important social challenges and offers meaningful insights that can inform policymakers and practitioners. The award winners’ findings have wider societal implications beyond a firm’s financial performance and extend beyond the particular consumer group, firm, or employee group that was studied.

More than 70 nominations were submitted for the AMA/EPSCO Award and reviewed by a diverse team of scholars, who received input from subject matter expert reviewers. To be considered, nominated studies needed to be published within 2017-2020 and exemplify the Seven Principles of Responsible Research.

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About Dr. Leonard L. Berry

Dr. Leonard L. Berry is University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Regents Professor, and holds the M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. He also is a Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence. As a Visiting Scientist at Mayo Clinic in 2001-2002, he conducted an in-depth research study of healthcare service, the basis for his book, Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic (2008). Concurrent with his faculty position in Mays Business School, Dr. Berry is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement studying service improvement in cancer care for patients and their families.

Professor Berry has written ten books in all, including: Discovering the Soul of Service; On Great Service; Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality; and Delivering Quality Service. He is the author of numerous academic articles and an invited lecturer throughout the world. Professor Berry’s teaching and research have been widely recognized with many honors for his contributions, including The Sheth Gold Medal, The American Marketing Association (AMA) William Wilkie “Marketing for a Better World” Award, the Paul D. Converse Award, the AMA/McGraw-Hill/Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, the Career Contributions to Services Marketing Award from the AMA, and the Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science. He is a Fellow of both the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Marketing Science. Texas A&M awarded him the Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching (1990) and the Distinguished Achievement Award in Research (1996 and 2008), the highest honors bestowed upon its faculty members. In 2014, he was inducted into Arizona State University’s Carey School of Business Hall of Fame, the first doctoral graduate to be selected, and in 2015 the Mays Business School at Texas A&M awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award for Research and Scholarship. A former national president of the American Marketing Association, Dr. Berry founded the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M in 1982 and served as its director through 2000.

About Mays Business School

At Mays Business School, we strive to advance the world’s prosperity. Our mission is to be a vibrant learning organization that creates impactful knowledge and develops transformational leaders. Mays Business School educates more than 6,300 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing, and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its programs and for faculty research.

https://mays.tamu.edu

About the American Marketing Association (AMA)

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September 2, 2020 – Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and leading health and well-being company Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) are launching the 2020 Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Case Competition to showcase students’ analytical abilities to solve a real-world business problem. The prize package for the winning teams has increased to $70,000, with $40,000 for first place, $20,000 for second place, and $10,000 for third place.

The fourth annual competition will be held virtually and is open to all accredited educational institutions based in the United States. Full-time and part-time master’s students from accredited Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Information Systems, Master of Public Health, or Master of Business Administration programs, or other similar master’s programs in business, healthcare, or analytics, are eligible to enter. Students are invited to create teams of two to three to tackle a real-world case. Each team can only include students from the same school.

“We have recalibrated one of the top national analytics competitions into a virtual format this year to continue to attract the brightest graduate students in the country,” said Eli Jones, dean of Mays Business School. “The teams will use data analytics to address real-world issues in healthcare, presenting in the digital format the whole world is adjusting to now.”

“Humana is grateful for the opportunity to again partner with my alma mater Texas A&M University on this impactful and real-world opportunity for students.” said Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard. “The future of health care increasingly depends on data analytics as a means to create personalized experiences and support emerging capabilities from telehealth to chronic disease management, all of which contribute to better health outcomes.”

The teams will be judged based on the following criteria:

• Quantitative analysis identifying key business insights
• Professionalism, data visualization, and presentation skills
• Ability to provide meaningful implications and recommendations based on results/insights

Key dates for 2020 participants include:

• Sept. 9: Virtual kickoff call for prospective participants
• Sept. 18: Team registration due
• Sept. 28: Virtual Q&A session with competition leadership
• Oct. 11: Completed team analysis due
• Oct. 23: Finalists selected and notified
• Nov. 12: Virtual presentations to executive panel; winners announced

The student team of Ozgur Cetinok, Leah Kelly, and Erica Millwater from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) won the $30,000 First Place prize in 2019. Over 1,300 masters level students representing over 80 major universities in the U.S. registered to compete for $52,500 in prizes.

See official rules and guidelines for more information.

About Mays Business School

At Mays Business School, we strive to advance the world’s prosperity. Our mission is to be a vibrant learning organization that creates impactful knowledge and develops transformational leaders. Mays Business School educates more than 6,400 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing, and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its programs and for faculty research.

About Humana

Humana Inc. is committed to helping our millions of medical and specialty members achieve their best health. Our successful history in care delivery and health plan administration is helping us create a new kind of integrated care with the power to improve health and well-being and lower costs. Our efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large.

To accomplish that, we support physicians and other health care professionals as they work to deliver the right care in the right place for their patients, our members. Our range of clinical capabilities, resources and tools – such as in-home care, behavioral health, pharmacy services, data analytics and wellness solutions – combine to produce a simplified experience that makes health care easier to navigate and more effective.

More information regarding Humana is available to investors via the Investor Relations page of the company’s web site at www.humana.com, including copies of:

• Annual reports to stockholders
• Securities and Exchange Commission filings
• Most recent investor conference presentations
• Quarterly earnings news releases and conference calls
• Calendar of events
• Corporate Governance information

On October 4, 2019, Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School students and faculty learned about non-clinical career opportunities in healthcare from industry leaders during the 2019 Healthcare Forum.

The day-long event featured presentations by top executives from different healthcare enterprises, including a hospital system, an insurance company, a health information technology company, and an occupational health company.

The forum underscored the business school’s commitment to preparing students to work on the business side of healthcare. “Mays realizes how important healthcare is to our nation’s and the world’s future prosperity,” said Dean Eli Jones ’82. “To that point, we have designated healthcare as one of three Grand Challenges in our Strategic Plan. This challenge was selected because of our faculty’s expertise, our focus on developing transformational leaders in this area, and the significant support provided by Mays partners.”

The Healthcare Forum gives students a chance to interact with and learn from top industry executives. “This annual event exposes business school students to the many non-clinical career paths available in healthcare and offers career advice as well,” said Dr. Leonard L. Berry, who is a University Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Mays and a senior fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “Most students don’t come to business school thinking about a healthcare career even though healthcare organizations have personnel needs in all of the functional areas studied in business school such as finance, marketing, human resources, and, of course, general management.”

The forum helped to expose Mays students to the possibilities of working in the healthcare industry. “Healthcare is such a broad field in general, and there’s so much you can do with it,” said Christopher Jabbour, ’21, a public health major. Jabbour attended the forum as part of a Mays course focused on healthcare.

A major industry

The forum’s speakers stressed that healthcare is an integral part of the U.S. landscape, both in terms of personal well-being and economic viability. “Healthcare is a crucial service that every person needs at various times in life,” Berry said. “It represents nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy and is our fastest-growing labor market. Business school students can play a much bigger role in helping improve the quality and lower the cost of healthcare.”

The healthcare sector is a larger part of the nation’s economy than the oil and gas, banking and finance, and real estate industries. In her presentation, Shara McClure ’90, the divisional senior vice president of Texas Healthcare Delivery at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, noted that in 2018, the healthcare sector was a $3.65 trillion industry; by 2025, this sector is projected to break $5 trillion.

Healthcare’s cost to society and to many households is unsustainably high with five percent of insured individuals driving 50 percent of the costs. The average cost of health insurance for a family of four is $22,000 annually.

The speakers stressed that they see tremendous opportunities for innovation ahead. “I don’t know where the future of healthcare leads, but I think there’s going to be tremendous opportunities,” said Heath Rushing ‘99, senior vice president and CEO of Memorial Hermann hospitals in Katy and Cypress. “The opportunities will just look different tomorrow than they do today as health systems work to deliver value to the consumer. I feel fortunate to work for a system that’s willing to challenge the status quo and create a structure that drives value to our patients. Having that consumer focus will help improve the health of the communities we serve.”

The healthcare executives who participated in the Mays forum were pleased with participants’ interest in this growing industry. “The students’ enthusiasm around opportunities in healthcare was incredible,” said Ben Melson ’82, senior vice president and chief financial officer at The University of Texas MD Anderson Center. “When I was attending Texas A&M in the 70s and 80s, there was no healthcare discussion. In today’s healthcare, we need young talent in all business fields – accounting, finance, marketing, industrial distribution, supply chain. Healthcare is ripe for this young talent, so it’s great to be here to show students what is available out there.”

The Mays students also expressed their interest in applying their knowledge of innovation and transformational leadership to help the healthcare sector evolve. “I think that the healthcare industry is currently faced with some major challenges that affect the overall success of this country. Our generation has the opportunity to do something about it,” said Eva Paalma ’18, who is earning a master’s degree in marketing and will graduate in December. “The vision of Mays has always been about building a better future, and it just seems like a very logical step for our business school to be part of the transformation in healthcare.”