Toby Gordon, ScD

Dr. Gordon is a Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School with expertise in the US and international healthcare systems and innovations in healthcare delivery. She holds joint appointments in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Health Policy and Management) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Surgery) and teaches in the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management (Germany) International Healthcare MBA program.

Dr. Gordon graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, then launched her career at Johns Hopkins as the coach of the JHU Women’s Squash team while completing her Doctor of Science degree at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Operations Research. She subsequently held various administrative posts at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health system, including serving as Vice President of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System for strategic planning and marketing and as Secretary to the Board of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Dr. Gordon joined the Carey Business School in 2010 as a founding faculty member to develop and direct the “Discovery to Market” technology commercialization course. She was the inaugural academic program director of the Healthcare Management program at Carey.  Her teaching interests are the organization and delivery of healthcare services in the US, with a particular focus on bringing social and biomedical innovations to the market, and in creative approaches to teaching and improvements in service-based learning in business education. A signature course is one that uses the HBO television show, The Wire, as a case study of the social determinants of health.  She also brings professional visual and performing artists into the classroom to teach applications of their art to management. She has received awards for innovative teaching from students, the Middle Atlantic Association of Colleges of Business and the Wharton Business School Reimagine Education program.

Dr. Gordon serves as the Deputy Director for Business Strategies at the JHU Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), an NIH RO1 funded Clinical Translational Science Award. She has an extensive publication bibliography, which includes a series of peer-reviewed articles and the textbook, Evidence-Based Surgery. This work with surgery colleagues documented the relationship between quality and outcome at lower cost for complex high-risk surgery and was used to create national cancer care guidelines and hospital quality standards.  She has served on the editorial board of Surgical Innovations (2013-2016) and was co-editor of the journal Medical Innovation and Business.  She has consulted numerous academic medical centers and the European Commission as an expert in the US healthcare system. She was appointed to the American Board of Radiology in 2019 and to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education as a public member in 2021.  She serves on the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission quality oversight committee.

A lifelong Baltimore resident, Dr. Gordon is very engaged in the community through board service on corporate, non-profit and government advisory boards and commissions. Dr. Gordon is a frequent contributor to the Baltimore Sun newspaper, writing about business and local topics. She has received numerous recognitions for her professional accomplishments and for civic and government volunteer efforts, including recognition as one of  Maryland's Top 100 Woman.

Education

• Sc. D, Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University
• BS, Health, University of Pennsylvania

Research

Selected publications

• Gordon, TA and Cameron, JL. Evidence-Based Surgery. , D.C. Decker Inc. Publisher, Ontario, Canada, March 2000.
• Gordon, TA, Bowman, H.B., Bass, E.B., Lillemoe, K.D., Yeo, C.J., Heitmiller, R.F., Choti, MA, Burleyson, G.P., Cameron, J.L. "Complex Gastrointestinal Surgery: Impact of Provider Experience on Clinical and Economic Outcomes," Journal of American College of Surgeons, July 1999, 189:1:46-56.
• Gordon, TA, Bowman, H.B., Tielsch, J.M., Bass E.B., Burleyson G.P., Cameron, J.L. "Statewide Regionalization of Pancreaticoduodenectomy and its Effect on In-Hospital Mortality," Annals of Surgery, July 1998, 228:1:71-78.
• Gordon, TA, Burleson, G.P., Shahrokh, S., Bass, E.B., Cameron, J.L. "Cost and Outcome for Complex High-Risk Gastrointestinal Surgical Procedures," Surgical Forum of the American College of Surgeons, Volume XVII, October 1996, 47:618-620.
• Gordon, TA, Burleyson, G., Tielsch, J.M., Cameron, J.L. "The Effects of Regionalization on Cost and Outcome for One High-Risk General Surgical Procedure," Annals of Surgery, January 1995, 221:1:43-49.

Teaching

Current

• Discovery to Market I & II
• Fundamentals of Health Care Systems
• The U.S. Health Care System: Past, Present, and Future
• The Wire: Business Solutions for Community Health Improvement
• Business Communication

Honors and distinctions

• 2013- Innovation in Teaching Award, Middle Atlantic Association of Colleges of Business
• 2008-Present Co-editor, Medical Innovation and Business, Wolters Klower Health
• 2007 Top 100 Minority and Women Business Entrepreneur (MBE)
• 2006 Maryland's Top 100 Women - Circle of Excellence, The Daily Record
• 2002 Governor's Volunteer Service Award, State of Maryland
• 2001-2006 Robert Woods Johnson Clinical Scholars Program Internal Advisory Board
• 2000-2006 Governor's Workforce Investment Board & Executive Committee, State of Maryland
• 2000 Publication Award of Excellence, AAMC Group on Institutional Advancement
• 1993-2001 Trustee Council of Penn Women, University of Pennsylvania
• 1983 The John Chancellor Hume Award for Significance of Doctoral Research in Health Policy and Management