Gift funds research, training on international health care

A generous gift by David Dean '76 MSSc/'78 PhD (SSc) has established the Health Management Faculty Development Fund at the Maxwell School. The fund will support research and teaching by a soon-to-be-hired faculty member, who will focus on health care policy and management. 

With his gift, Dean intends to help the School recruit an exceptional faculty member to that post, and to ultimately encourage research and teaching that explores international perspectives on health care management. The fund will initially support research by the incoming faculty member; depending on outcomes, further resources may be made available to pursue research more specifically focused on international health care system design. The search for this faculty member is currently underway, supported by Syracuse University’s cluster hire initiative; as a cluster hire, the appointee will serve the University’s broad interdisciplinary focus on aging, behavioral health, and neuroscience. He or she will teach in Maxwell’s Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, and serve as lead faculty member for courses that lead to the Certificate in Health Services Management and Policy.

Having worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, Kepner-Tregoe, and Booz & Company, David Dean founded Chappell Dean Management Consultancy in Sydney, Australia, in 1993. He credits his social science background for helping him assist organizations as they adapt to upheavals in technology, consumer behavior, and regulation — work that, in Australia, led to a focus on the hospital sector. As an outgrowth of his firm’s efforts, in 1995 Dean helped create a cooperative nonprofit, The Health Roundtable, to enable hospitals to share data and insights directly with each other; during his 20-plus years with this organization, membership grew from seven to 150 hospitals. He retired from Chappell Dean in 2018, but remains interested in ongoing pressures that face health systems around the world.  

His gift, he says, supports Maxwell’s interdisciplinary efforts to develop new approaches to health care funding, service delivery, and consumer behavior change, and does so by encouraging international collaboration. “The USA is not alone in its struggles to provide high quality, affordable care,” Dean said. “Other countries have developed many different approaches to funding and delivering care, but all are also struggling with the same issues. I support teaching and research projects that identify and adapt the innovations that address these issues.”

10/31/19