Dr. N. Colbey Walker
Assistant Professor, Health Administration & Health Policy
Education & Experience:
I hold a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) degree in Healthcare Management and Leadership from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) degree from the Texas A&M School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Biology from Texas A&M University. I am a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Administrative Fellowship Program – a two-year, rotation-based postgraduate administrative training program in Baltimore, Maryland. My professional experience includes roles with The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and UT Southwestern Medical Center and has revolved largely around building and leading teams, and managing inpatient and outpatient operations, academic faculty practices, and perioperative services.
Teaching Areas & Public Health Interests:
My teaching concentrations include operations management, leadership, and data analytics. Having served in leadership roles spanning multiple clinical environments, clinical specialties, and patient populations, I have developed an understanding of the many variables in play in the various components of the U.S. health system and the incredible value that the common languages of leadership and data possess where these worlds meet.
As a beneficiary of a patient and generous internship preceptor and a graduate of a fellowship program marked by deep and broad leadership engagement, I have an acute interest in facilitating opportunities for learning, training, mentorship, and coaching for students and early careerists. I have served as an internship and fellowship rotation preceptor, a fellowship program steering committee member, both formally and informally as a mentor to current students, early careerists, and colleagues at all levels, and have developed educational curriculum, training series, and mentorship programs at each institution I’ve worked.
I have a strong interest in the inequities of the U.S. healthcare system and the roles that public health professionals working in healthcare administration can play to address gaps in access, frequently substandard quality, and largely uncontrolled costs.
Professional Activities & Awards:
I am an active member of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), and the Texas Hospital Association (THA) Leadership Development Council. I have extensive membership and board service experience with a number of other professional organizations including the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Association of Academic Surgical Administrators (AASA), the Academy of Academic Administrators in Emergency Medicine (AAAEM), and the National Council on Administrative Fellowships (NCAF). I am a Lean-Six Sigma Green Belt and hold a Certificate in Academic Emergency Medicine Administration from the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine.
Scholarly Interests:
Coming from a practitioner background, my scholarly efforts to date have primarily involved financial and operational questions in the clinical environment (e.g., impacts of professional medical coding on an academic emergency physician group, effects of operating room case scheduling optimization on a downstream intensive care unit, use of Lean Six Sigma methodologies to improve discharge paperwork for admission to an inpatient rehabilitation unit). Currently, though, I am interested in studying leadership and organizational behavior through the lens of stakeholder identification and influence, the relationships between public health practitioners and policy makers, and the widespread issues with healthcare cost, quality, and access in the United States. As an extension of this work, I am also interested in exploring the development of a system to measure and classify the influence of stakeholders on organizational behavior and of public health practitioners on policy makers in order to enrich the critical, ongoing conversations regarding public health decision making.
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