UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s UCLA Center for Healthcare Management names executive-in-residence

Jack Schlosser, a healthcare management veteran with more than four decades in the field, has been named Executive-in-Residence at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s UCLA Center for Healthcare Management for the 2022-23 academic year.

“Jack has a long history with the department; he is a graduate, a mentor, and a supporter, who has a long and distinguished career in healthcare at every level from local hospitals to national and international firms,” said Dr. Laura Erskine, UCLA Fielding School professor of health policy and management and Director of the Center for Healthcare Management. “Jack is a great strategic thinker, and now that the Center has been in existence for three years, he is the right person to be a thought partner in the Center’s evolution.”

The UCLA Center for Healthcare Management generates practical, relevant knowledge via evidence-based management scholarship by actively involving healthcare organizations as collaborative partners with academic faculty, researchers, and students. The Center’s programs include the Paul Torrens Health Forum at UCLA, an established discussion series where practitioners and academics discuss timely public health issues affecting the industry, and the annual Healthcare Management Case Competition for graduate students from across the U.S. and internationally, among others.

Schlosser, who graduated from what is now the Fielding School with a Master of Public Health in 1974, is the founder and principal of Los Angeles-based Desert Vista Advisors, which provides executive and management coaching in the healthcare industry. Previously, he served as a senior executive at a “Big 8” accounting firm, a regional health system, and at what was then-Long Beach Community Hospital.

He has spent more than thirty years in executive search where he conducted more than 400 top management searches for healthcare providers, physician organizations, academic medical centers, payors, associations, and professional service firms. Schlosser is the first individual to receive both the Leadership Award and the Ira Alpert Service Award from the UCLA Health Policy and Management Alumni Association.

“I am very pleased to be offered an opportunity to serve UCLA and the Fielding School at the Center for Healthcare Management,” Schlosser said. “The exchange of ideas between education and industry can lead to positive and sustainable results, and I am looking forward to bringing those forward in my work at CHM.”

Schlosser’s appointment is one of many developments underway in 2022-23 at the Center for Healthcare Management, said Erskine, a management scholar who teaches courses in organizational behavior and leadership. These include:

• the fourth annual “Healthcare Management Case Competition,” pitting teams of graduate students from across the United States against each other to solve a real-world challenge presented by UCLA Health, the premier sponsor. In prior years, teams have been challenged to create long-term strategies for telehealth, develop local and global partnerships, and strengthen the commitment to under-resourced populations across southern California, among others;
• five health forums, under the umbrella of the Paul Torrens Health Forum at UCLA, where practitioners and academics discuss timely public health issues affecting the industry; and
• a spring symposium in 2023, bringing together scholars from across the UCLA campus to discuss their diverse perspectives on issues in healthcare management.

“Our goal is to bring real-world healthcare management problems, solutions, and experience into the classroom and on campus, and then to bring great ideas back to the healthcare providers, both public and private sector,” said Erskine, whose published research includes work on effective leadership in a virtual work environment and the strategies firms use to maximize the impact of financial corporate philanthropy on employee attitudes. “What we really want to do is advance these partnerships and drive the necessary innovation to solve complex problems in creative ways.”

Erskine has taught at UCLA since 2013. A graduate of McGill University, she earned an MBA from the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, and her Ph.D. (Organizational Behavior) from the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. She has taught at USC, SUNY Binghamton, and Illinois State University.

Along with teaching and research at UCLA, she is the director of the UCLA Fielding School’s MHA Program, and previously served as director of the school’s MPH Program in Health Policy and Management and as associate dean for practice. Erskine also manages the Paul Torrens Health Forum at UCLA.