Business Advancement Center for Health
Business Advancement Center for Health (BACH) and the Carlson School of Management are uniquely positioned to reimagine and provide leadership in healthcare. By engaging interdisciplinary experts from academia, industry, and the community, BACH is designing and evaluating business-driven innovations that address critical gaps of equity in healthcare.
BACH runs on a framework of 4 ‘C’ principles
- Convene key stakeholders in the community, academia, and industry
- Conduct collaborative research
- Co-Create innovative business-driven models
- Communicate findings
BACH Events
BACH highlights the value of collaboration among stakeholders and will host roundtables and consortia with industry and community partners, conferences, multi-sector forums, and interdisciplinary student competitions. Past events are also available to watch.
Health Equity Research
Participatory research projects will engage the community and industry, along with faculty and students. This ecosystem will complement Carlson coursework, expose students to state-of-the-art thinking, and engage faculty in innovative real-world health sector solutions.
Support the Center
Bridging the intersections of community, industry, and academia, BACH aligns sectors of the health economy to co-create innovative solutions to drive marketplace implementation. Learn more about how your gifts help to support BACH's research and activities for industry professionals and students.
BACH Features
Convene 2026: AI for Appropriate Care
The Business Advancement Center for Health (BACH) hosted the 8th annual Convene Conference on April 8, 2026, bringing together leaders across healthcare, technology, academia, and policy to examine the real-world impact of artificial intelligence.
Across keynote, panel, and executive discussions, speakers explored what it takes to move AI from promising innovation to meaningful implementation, highlighting the importance of clinical workflow integration, data access, governance, and organizational readiness.
A consistent theme emerged: AI’s potential is clear, but delivering on it requires difficult tradeoffs, honest evaluation, and alignment across complex systems. Convene 2026 explored where progress is being made and where challenges remain.
60+ Students. 13 Teams. One Data Challenge
The Business Advancement Center for Health (BACH) recently hosted the 7th annual Interdisciplinary Health Data Competition (IHDC), engaging more than 60 students across 13 interdisciplinary teams from the University of Minnesota.
Participants analyzed healthcare provider data to examine connections among quality performance metrics, payment models, and the social context of practice locations. Over 12-days, teams translated complex datasets into actionable insights and presented evidence-based findings to a panel of academic and industry judges.
The competition highlighted how rigorous analysis can inform smarter, more equitable healthcare decision-making. Congratulations to the four finalist teams!
Leaders on the Future of Healthcare
The 4th Annual Health Sector Leaders Consortium, held on October 28, 2025, brought together more than 100 faculty, students, and industry leaders for an evening of candid dialogue on innovation, value, and real-world impact in healthcare. Across four keynote-style talks, leaders from Optum, TrueNorth Health Ventures, Solventum and Boston Consulting Group explored AI governance, business model innovation, MedTech transformation, and sector-wide trends shaping the future of care. A unifying theme emerged throughout the program: technology alone does not create value—governance, incentives, culture, and human judgment are essential to ensuring innovation truly improves health outcomes.