Discover how Dr. Harvey’s innovative strategies are reshaping the future of healthcare
Dr. John Edward Harvey discusses his impactful career in healthcare consulting, emphasizing leadership, transformation, and the importance of mentorship in shaping future healthcare policies.
In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare consulting, few figures stand out as prominently as Dr. John Edward Harvey. With over three decades of unparalleled experience, Dr. Harvey has not only shaped the field but has also inspired countless professionals through his innovative approaches to leadership, transformation planning, and change management. As the founder and President of DAH Consulting, Inc., he has spearheaded initiatives that have left a lasting impact on governments and organizations across the globe, from the Caribbean to Africa.
Dr. Harvey’s academic prowess is matched only by his practical expertise. A former professor at esteemed institutions such as New York University and Howard University, he has dedicated his career to bridging the gap between theory and practice. His extensive research and published works in economics and healthcare policy reflect a deep commitment to advancing knowledge and fostering effective solutions in a complex world.
In this exclusive interview, Dr. Harvey shares his remarkable journey—from his humble beginnings in Trinidad and Tobago to becoming a leading voice in healthcare consulting. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of his career, the importance of mentorship, and his vision for the future of healthcare policy. As we feature Dr. Harvey on our cover, we celebrate not only his achievements but also his unwavering dedication to creating enterprise value through transformation. His insights are invaluable for anyone looking to navigate the intricate world of healthcare consulting and drive meaningful change.
Dr. John Edward Harvey is a pioneering leader whose innovative strategies and dedication have profoundly transformed healthcare consulting on a global scale.
Can you share your journey that led you to establish DAH Consulting, Inc.?
Born of a working class Civil Service family, I watched my father toil at multiple jobs, including handmade furniture – cabinetmaking, to support his large family of seven (7). I rose out of the
neighborhood of settlers to win a scholarship to a prestigeous college (high school), where I qualified amongst the elites of the Trinidad and Tobago society and migrated from Trinidad and Tobago to Howard University, where my academic and entrepreneurship journey began. Through exposure to faculty and peers in various academic settings I defined my purpose and business model that became my life’s work. My journey is filled with mentors, advisors and collaborators that broaden my exposure and resource base.
What experiences in your early career shaped your approach to consulting and healthcare policy?
I graduated from Howard University with a Phd in Economics and commenced teaching graduate and undergraduate students. My PhD advisor, the owner of a management consulting firm that I later interned at, was influential in both my Dissertation design, an Econometric Commodity Forecasting Model of the Petroleum Industry, and in developing my consulting practice which I modeled after his. He provided commodity economic modeling to US Government Agencies such as the US Department of the Interior. My research areas for the advanced degree provided me the tools and skill sets to be a successful advisor, mentor and consultant. My Post Doctoral studies helped hone my skills and provided networks that opened up opportunities for further consulting work in specialized areas. My foray into local government in New York exposed me to some leaders in healthcare and finance who encouraged me to develop the consulting practice.
How has your time teaching at institutions like NYU influenced your consulting work?
My consulting practice followed the entrepreneurship model, where I only provided services that matched my skill sets, many of them acquired from the research and preparatory work developed in the classroom. My students benefited from the practices and pilot projects that I tested in many environments, and with different levels of urgency. Interestingly, the healthcare models that I used for theoretical analysis were quite often used for empirical modeling and testing in various country studies and sectors. My work in healthcare financing for the governments of Jamaica, Suriname, Liberia and Trinidad, to name a few, benefitted from a seamless transfer from the classroom. The desire to add value, and make a difference in the lives of these country citizens led to me prioritizing the International consulting practice over the classroom. The program(s) at NYU have Public Service focus, with faculty expertise driving many local government and federal governemnt initiatives. I became part of that community
What are some of the biggest challenges you face in consulting for health care policy?
Interestingly, my consulting practice benefitted from work in an area of need e.g., when DAH first got into healthcare financing, the environment was not as competitive and services were mainly from the major universities in areas such as Public Health. The competitive environment has changed, service delivery models have developed and embodied many of the digital transformation and innovation practices commonly associated with manufacturing. My experience with consulting for healthcare policy has been quite often challenging, given the likely impact of these policies for economic and social well being. The decision to finance and implement Universal health care, for example, was challenged by medical associations, private providers, insurance companies and health care organizations. Each of these stakeholders had to be given voice, risks assessed, and recommendations made to mitigate risks as needed. In every case the consultant had to act as objective participants while trying to find optimum solutions.
How does your experience with international organizations like the World Bank differ from working with U.S. federal agencies?
My experiences with the international agencies have been beneficial, as services are specific and directed to fill a need that quite often affects significant numbers of the affected populations. US Federal Agencies have multiple choices and quite often rely on a small sample of experts for their services. Entrepreneurs are quite often forced to compete with vendors with special access and are not always funded at a level to break the barriers to growth and access. Increasingly these financing institutions are partnering, leading to less duplication when serving the same target audience.
In your experience, what are the most common financial management pitfalls that healthcare organizations face?
Many healthcare organizations are not not resourced in a way to support equity and access, although that is quite often written into their missions. Because of the funding structure for healthcare, especially in universal health systems where technology and pharmaceutical costs drive health budgets, health systems suffer from quality disparities, long wait times, service inefficiencies, inconsistent execution and staff not properly integrated into services. Whereas the solution may include more technology, the capital and human resources to increase ROI and generate use value on a continuing basis are not available. Although Fee for Service systems may provide more resources, planning and funding for technology disruption should be continuous and accessable. Healthcare organizations need to integrate resource management and capacity development into their strategic planning. Increasingly, health service models require other skilled workers, new systems and different production functions from the traditional service models. Unless these new skills are integrated, the technology upgrades will not be effective and trust in these new systems will not be built. Skill Sets to include, policy, standards and communication guidelines will add to the successful application and embracing of the new environment.
What are the key components of effective strategic planning in health care organizations?
Effective strategic planning requires identifying areas of opportunity for growth, or stabilization, supported by appropriate risk assessments and mitigation strategies. I am reminded by a plan I developed for a healthcare organization, that would put the organization on the cutting edge of health service delivery. While it embodied sound practice, it never predicted the type of risk and effect of the COVID 19 epidemic. The organization’s plan was abandoned, as we all went into survival mode. There are many lessons for planners in this exercise, as we have to plan for rapid change and be better able to predict market needs. Deep conversations on resource needs, gaps and solutions should be routine, both to recognize opportunity and to plan change. Additionally the organization must develop the capacity, individual and institutional, to execute the plan while embracing environmental change. In this environment, planning should include short term adjustments with a customer centric focus as well as ways to collaborate in the new innovative environment. This type of planning is discussed in my work, recently published on Amazon, “ Creating Enterprise Value Through Transformation”.
What is your teaching philosophy, and how do you engage students in complex topics like health economics and finance?
As an educator, my philosophy centers on the belief that every student has the potential to learn and succeed. My role is to create a supportive and engaging learning environment that fosters intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and lifelong learning. My approach is student-centered, with a focus on active learning and collaborative problem-solving. I use a variety of teaching methods and strategies that encourage students to participate. These include group work, case studies, simulations, and other experiential learning activities that allow students to apply theoretical concepts to real-world problems. I believe that students learn best when they can connect with the material and understand its relevance to their lives. As a business owner I am able to provide useful and relevant experiences for the business owner of tomorrow. I am committed to ongoing professional development and continuous improvement. I seek out opportunities to learn and grow as a teacher, and I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching methods and strategies.
Have you had mentors who influenced your career? How do you approach mentoring the next generation of healthcare leaders?
Mentorship is critical as an aide to learning. My career choice was shaped by some influential people I met along the way, who provided guidance and commitment to my progress. I also had the responsibility to assess this need, on a project for the US Government, and was able to assess ways to expand the participation pipeline in some critical skills areas with mentorship. This is particularly important in some ethnic groups that have traditionally not benefited from this type of support. Mentorship for the next generation of healthcare leaders should be tied to developing new skill sets that provide a deep understanding of the new technologies, the risks and benefits to their respective organizations. Leadership in this new environment will require full committment and support to develop human capacity and talent from within the organization as the demand for these resources are increasing rapidly.
What do you envision for the future of healthcare policy in the next decade?
The future of healthcare policy will be tied to protecting the interest of the vulnerable – especially in the areas of privacy, security, access and good governance of their data. In the world of AI, large amounts of data are being collected, and being used for different purposes. Protections need to be developed and evolved as AI systems grow at this phenomenal rate. Every handoff of data, through human and digital points, provides opportunity for breaches. The reliability of technology, the relevance of training data and the reliability of information are areas of on-going concern and therefore subject to policy oversight. Even as we recognize the value of digital technology and transformation, there remains a residual demand for humankind and personal interaction for more critical areas. However, cost effectiveness and the potentrial for new breakthroughs support digital adoption in healthcare along with the required investments and supportive policy on security and privacy.
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to enter the healthcare consulting field?
The healthcare industry is in a major transition with rapid turnover in medical staff, physician, nurses etc. The industry is trying to find an identity with the innovations from AI and Machine Learning increasingly making inroads into treasured and valued areas of the profession, with many practitioners feeling undervalued and detached from decision making. There is a need for transformation and continuous investment to match personnel, systems, security and governance. The innovator can add value to this evolving process by being at the table, identifying opportunity and bringing solutions, proprietary or collaborative. Then there is always the need for training, re-training and quality. New skill sets in areas of technology, engineering, database management, analytics and communication will become part of every organization’s need as AI is applied to all areas of business.
You’ve attended executive programs at prestigious institutions. How important is continuous education in your field?
There has never been a time in history where the need for Training and retraining is so prevalent. In the world of digital transformation and AI, the issue is less about job loss, but the need for additional skill sets in new areas, as well as those to complement new technologies. Continuous education is important, but also to be in front of the emerging technologies and systems. Investment in education and re-education is required at all levels of organizations, including the corporate suite. Investment in these programs also provided windows for collaboration and partnerships across service types and solutions for in-house development. It allows you to see possibilities and to broaden your lens to get in front of opportunity.
What is the vision for DAH Consulting in the coming years?
DAH will continue to identify opportunities to evolve and embrace leading edge solutions to solve problems. We will continue to do research – programmatic, operational, and transformative, and document our solutions and experiences and share our success models with the wider audience. Our scope will continue to include our international clients, we will partner and collaborate to grow, and we will use all of the new systems to listen to our customers, predict opportunity, open our eyes to possibilities and offer valued services. While large companies have been featured as preferred providers in many areas, the entrepreneurs are quite often the innovators, and their solutions are quite often not valued and made visible and branded. DAH will collaborate, document its research, solutions, use cases, experiences and successes in building customer value and market share. (See: Harvey and Simpson, Creating Customer Value Through Transformation).
As the founder and President of DAH Consulting, what is your overarching vision for the company, and how do you ensure that this vision is communicated and embraced by your team?
DAH is resilient and will become better at responding to customer needs. The new competitive environment is dominated by companies that understand and partner to respond to customer needs. Many products are being cast aside as new ways of providing services, driven by AI, networking and collaborating are forcing change. DAH will continue to be nimble and adopt new solutions and approaches. DAH will become more agile, aware and capable to satisfy evolving needs in the new environment. Our staff will continue to be trained in the new system and approaches and developed to be customer focussed and embrace the new operating models. We will continue to develop strategic plans based on assessments and diagnostics that reveal organization capability strengths and weaknesses. We will see possibilities and understand human capacity and institutional needs to a level of detail and analytic rigor for the right capability to be budgeted and roadmapped to support growth or stability.
How do you, as a CEO, balance short-term goals with long-term strategic vision in the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare consulting?
The healthcare environment is being disrupted by new technology, forcing health care organizations to be aggressive in adopting these new technologies. It is applying agile and adaptive solutions to support long term goals of access, efficiency, quality and equity. For example, the expansion and use of virtual health is taking many new forms, both remote across geographic areas, but also at the bedside, where remote monitoring systems, using sensors, are currently being used. Whereas the needs were originally to offer services to remote and rural areas, it became available in bringing health to where people live, and now it is used to substitute for staff shortages, while continuing to deliver health service monitoring for chronic care patients. These organizations need to be agile, develop partners and roadmaps that reflect these transformative approaches to service. If we entrepreneurs are not resilient, adapt, network and plan accordingly, we will be cannibalized and die, overrun by larger collaborations that are outfront in developing new service types. There is a continuing role for the entrepreneurial organization in integrating these new technologies, to make them more efficient and effective in adopting to different cultures and in building representative training data sets.
