Jen Raney MHCDS'25 & Joe McDonough '17, CEO of Innovive Health, on Leading Change in Health Care

With more than a decade of experience as a physician in federally-qualified health centers, Jen Raney, MD, has always had a strong desire to drive positive change in health care and serve the most vulnerable patients.

Raney is the inaugural director of a family nurse practitioner residency program at Providence Community Health Centers in Providence, RI. There, she equips newly graduated nurse practitioners with the skills needed to deliver complex care to health center patients. PCHC caters to approximately 1 in every 5 adults in Providence and about 1 in every 10 children in the state. 

To successfully drive impactful change in health care delivery, Raney sought a 360-degree-view of business and health care systems. She knew she wanted to bolster her leadership and organizational skills. She was also eager to connect with like-minded health professionals in the field. 

“The MBA didn't feel like the perfect fit for me, and a MPH wasn’t precisely aligned with my goals. The MHCDS program, however, provided an exceptional blend of all the elements I was seeking,” says Raney, who decided to enroll in the Dartmouth Master of Health Care Delivery Science program. Jointly led by the Tuck School of Business and the Geisel School of Medicine, the 12-month, hybrid program aims to prepare physicians, nurses, health care executives, and other health care industry experts to become leaders in bringing the transformational change needed to move health care toward a value-based care delivery system.

“Knowing that there are people across the country who are determined to move change within the health care system in their different organizations has given me increased inner strength and confidence to try to push more personally,” says Raney.

Raney recalls a pivotal moment during an on-campus session in Hanover, NH. During Leading Change, a personal leadership course taught by Tuck professor Pino Audia, a special guest speaker was invited to the classroom to share his leadership journey: Joe McDonough, MHCDS’17, CEO of Innovive Health.

McDonough, an alumnus of the MHCDS program, has led Innovive Health for nearly 20 years. Because Innovive operates in people’s homes, the organization faced substantial hardships when the COVID-19 pandemic first began, including financial and staffing challenges. MHCDS participants, including Raney, were asked to read a case study on Innovive and McDonough’s leadership style in preparation for his visit. 

Raney recognized similarities between Innovive’s patient population and those served by her community health center. The case study and CEO McDonough’s visit provided Raney with valuable insights she could bring back to her own organization and career. Here’s what she learned:

What were some of your key takeaways from the case study on Innovive Health and CEO Joe McDonough’s leadership? What were some of your takeaways from the MHCDS Leading Change course?

These types of situations test a leader. Seeing how Joe confronted and successfully solved challenging financial and personnel problems while demonstrating strong leadership and support for his team was inspiring. Joe excelled at projecting his vision and using it to garner the support of his team. At Innovive, everybody recognized that their collective efforts had the power to transform lives. This sense of purpose empowers employees and makes them feel valued. It is a leadership trait we would all benefit from trying to emulate.

One of the most impactful aspects of this case is that Innovive works in a space that most wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Innovive intentionally works with Medicaid patients who require intensive care, such as those with multiple chronic diseases and mental illnesses. Innovive has taken this challenging-to-treat population on in such an incredibly successful way that brings cost savings to the public care system while also bringing incredible value and compassionate care to this population.

Relating to my current role, the experience gave me a much deeper understanding of leadership. Any of these challenges could have been the death of this company. The leadership was the differentiator.

Leading Change with Professor Audia gave me the opportunity to examine my own leadership style. Before the class began, Pino requested a list of our past and current colleagues who then provided additional information about us and our leadership styles. Upon our arrival on campus, we received individual leadership profiles. This whole process, and the course overall, prompted me to think more systematically about my leadership strengths and weaknesses.

I understand that most MHCDS participants work full time while enrolled in the program. Are there any lessons you’ve been able to apply from Innovive and Joe in real-time?

Given that Joe and I both work at mission-driven organizations serving similar patient populations, I found his story highly relevant to my work environment. We've even had shared patients in the past.

Just before I started the MHCDS program, there was an unexpected leadership transition within my current organization. As this was all happening, I was learning about leadership styles from Professor Audia, which helped me develop a better framework for understanding and working in complementary ways with my new manager’s leadership style. It’s helped me leverage my role and skills to advocate for the changes I think we need to be making.

What change would you like to see in health care and health care delivery?

Ultimately, I believe the most effective change in health care requires building a system that prioritizes keeping people well rather than primarily focusing on treating them once they're sick. To achieve this, we need increased, multi-sector investments because it will require contributions beyond those working in health care to make it possible.

Health touches everything, and the amount of money that we're spending on health care, almost a fifth of our GDP, is unsustainable. With that much money, we could do amazing things for our educational system, environment, housing challenges, infrastructure, or transportation systems. We could make people’s lives measurably better if so much of that money wasn’t going into trying to heal them once they’re sick.