Innovating for Impact: Where the Executive MBA meets Healthcare Transformation

Lamya Hamad '24, Jen Spencer '23, and Alex Sunseri '23 joined the inaugural Executive MBA class focusing on Life Sciences electives, entrepreneurship seminar and New York City networking trip. While they shared several core curriculum courses in their online program, the Life Sciences courses, Ethics in Bioinformatics (BIOL 625) and Principles of Biomedical Device Regulations (BIME 617) sparked more cross-over collaboration and increased interest to apply their learnings to solve a real world problem.

They combined their classroom learnings with experiences in pharma, health information, and cybersecurity to create Stratus Health Sync, a winning interoperability solution for the 3rd annual Case Competition, part of the Healthcare Conference hosted by Columbia Business School and the Healthcare Industry Association. Their solution bested teams from MIT, Villanova, CBS, Sloan and NYU.

“We leveraged our diverse expertise in patient care, pharmacy, health information, data exchanges and cybersecurity to address the critical challenge of enhancing healthcare data interoperability for value-based care,” Alex Sunseri said in a LinkedIn post.

The cross-cohort team presented their case at the 20th annual Sharpen the Saw, where executive MBA alumni in key industries from biotech to insurance benefits gave them critical feedback to perfect their pitch. Stratus Health Sync was recognized as a regional finalist for the New York Business Plan Competition (NYBPC), and we can’t wait to see what’s next.

Their success in the Healthcare Conference Case Competition and recognition as a regional finalist in the New York Business Plan Competition demonstrate the impactful outcomes when executive MBA core principles intersect with life sciences expertise. 

Learn more about the nationally ranked online Executive MBA program here.