Client
The Geisel School of MedicineLocation
Hanover, New HampshireThe Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States. Geisel has a total annual enrollment of more 800 students, with the MD program accounting for 368 students and the PhD and master’s programs each enrolling approximately 230 students. The school has consistently maintained an outstanding research enterprise with a portfolio of nearly $100 million in extramural funding.
The Challenge
Similar to many medical schools, Geisel struggled financially for a number of years. Beginning in 2015 and 2016, the school took steps to address imbalances in its financial and operating models, resulting in a hard-won financial turnaround and putting it on strong academic and financial footing. As Geisel started generating positive operating margins, leadership began contemplating investments to enhance the school’s mission areas as it looked to build for the future.
Coinciding with the financial turnaround, the school started addressing accreditation review findings from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) in areas such as sufficiency of administrative staff, diversity, infrastructure, curricular content, and student well-being.
Recognizing the need for a comprehensive strategic plan, Geisel leadership engaged ECG to facilitate the development of a five-year blueprint to guide the school for future success.
Our Solution
Ensuring that all members of the Geisel community, regardless of tenure or position, had opportunities to provide feedback on the strategic plan was a guiding principle of the process. ECG conducted stakeholder interviews, assessed the current state of the school, and solicited input from the community during a half-day strategic planning retreat.
The results of the retreat served to direct efforts and facilitate development of a steering committee and four functional work groups. The steering committee was charged with leading and directing the course of the project while each work group completed detailed planning for their respective areas.
Throughout the process, ECG gathered input and feedback on emerging themes and values of the strategic plan through a variety of methods, including:
- Launching a strategic planning website to keep the community informed of progress and crowdsource ideas.
- Facilitating a mini-retreat to brainstorm concepts on how to shape future educational programs.
- Hosting community forums to solicit additional feedback on emerging goals and initiatives.
Our Results
ECG partnered with the Geisel community to develop a tailored and actionable strategic plan outlining the school’s mission, vision, and newly defined values, and detailing 7 strategic goals and 19 initiatives to guide its future efforts. Geisel leadership wanted the process to be comprehensive and inclusive, and it was:
- Interviews with 97 stakeholders
- Nearly 150 retreat participants
- 59 steering committee and work group members
- 70 individuals providing feedback via the strategic planning website
- More than 100 community forum attendees
Geisel subsequently retained ECG to help develop a structure to ensure successful implementation of the strategic plan. Key resources ECG provided include:
- An oversight framework detailing the roles and responsibilities of implementation team members.
- Tools and job aids to support the rollout of the strategic plan.
- A process and approach for ensuring accountability throughout the implementation.
- Dashboard reporting tools to track implementation progress and KPIs.
