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Leading Change in Healthcare

Advance your career as a high impact senior leader who can achieve transformational change at scale and pace in the healthcare sector.

The healthcare sector is in need of transformational change, and you are tasked with driving it forward. A challenge for even the most experienced of leaders – particularly with as much as 70% of change management initiatives failing – the ability to successfully lead change in healthcare is a premium quality.
This week-long executive education course has been designed by world leading UCL experts to enable you to transform your organisation and your career.

woman in management team having a seated discussion

"Significant and radical change is always challenging for any business, team or system. When the dynamic of healthcare delivery is included change becomes even more complex; the myriad of stakeholders, the pressures facing the delicate health ecosystems and the emotion that goes with delivering care to the vulnerable means that change needs to be handled sensitively, carefully and with a real focus on people, their motivations and values".
David Probert
Chief Executive
UCLH NHS Foundation Trust

A career changing experience

Delivered by the UCL Global Business School for Health (UCL GBSH) – the world’s first business school dedicated to health –  our Leading Change in Healthcare executive education course provides an opportunity for you to pause and reflect from your everyday leadership activities, helping you to drive organisational change more effectively in the long-term. 
Some of the highlights of the course include site visits across London’s complex health ecosystem, interrogating some of the latest thinking in leading change management alongside experts and peers, and working on a personal change project. Complete with a new network of likeminded global health leaders, you will also come away with an evidence-based, invigorated approach to leading change management in healthcare.

The power of UCL and London

Embarking on this executive education course brings you the exceptional benefits of studying at a world top 10 university with globally renowned health credentials. Anchored by the inimitable experience of London – a global city that is a leader in health and business – the Leading Change in Healthcare executive education course provides unprecedented opportunities to retain your edge as a talented healthcare leader who can deliver change and promote innovation.

Make a difference as a senior leader

Demographic shifts, lifestyle changes, climate change, technology and social inequity have all placed great pressure on health and healthcare in recent years. With the Covid-19 pandemic adding yet more strain, healthcare leaders globally are being urged to implement palpable transformational change. An executive education course designed by global experts in this field, you will leave this course empowered to make a tangible difference in healthcare leadership.

What’s involved:

  • A programme that has been developed from a wide range of research and professional experience, this course stretches thinking beyond traditional business and management boundaries, making it a truly unique opportunity. 
  • You will explore a range of topics on this course that form the building blocks of leading change in healthcare. Delivered by health experts and academics, themes include empowering people to change, understanding the culture and workforce of your organisation, changing health ecosystems, developing user centred care and measuring change in terms of outcomes and impact.
  • The course covers key theories and frameworks of change, applied specifically to a healthcare setting. 
  • Participants also work on a personal change project during the week, informed by your learning and group discussions. At the end of the week you will present your change project, benefitting from input and insights from the faculty and your peers.
  • You will also make the most of the tremendous excellence in healthcare that London offers, with site visits across London’s complex health ecosystem.
  • Networking opportunities include a welcome reception and a group dinner towards the end of the course.

Who the programme is for

Our Leading Change in Healthcare executive education course is for ambitious senior healthcare leaders who want to be responsible for leading transformational change in their healthcare organisations. You may be a clinical leader, policymaker or healthcare executive tasked with leading an aspect of change in your healthcare organisation. Or you may come from an industry related to health, working at a level where you are expected to drive organisational change.

Programme curriculum

Incorporating both contextualised and experiential learning, this course is delivered through interactive lectures from UCL academics, which is supplemented by site visits, reading, participant discussions and hands on exercises. Much of the learning will be directed through real world case studies and project-based learning from change management and leadership experts. Before your arrival on the course, you will be sent a leadership assessment questionnaire to complete. This will form an important basis of the first module, when you will understand your starting point and leadership style.

The course content is delivered through eight modules over five days, from 9:30am-5:30pm (UK GMT), with an hour-long break for lunch. Each day ends with a 360-degree feedback session, where you will be invited to share your reflections on your learning, the speakers, events, and activities across the day, and receive comments from the module leads that day. These sessions will also be an opportunity for you to engage in peer-to-peer dialogue and peer review.

As part of your self-led learning, academic readings and self-assessment tools will be available online. There will also be discussion forums on our course Moodle website where you can pose questions to colleagues and instructors throughout the week for debate and answers.

Participants will complete two assessments for the programme. The first is a self-reflection log on your experience as a leader in driving change. The second assessment will involve a group challenge and presentation involving developing a change management plan in healthcare, which will be evaluated by a panel of experts on the last afternoon. On completion of the course and the two assessments, you will receive a certificate from UCL GBSH.

female addressing a team in a board room
 

Modules

Leadership of Self and Change Agency

Monday morning and afternoon sessions

Delivered with a reflective, action learning focus, this module will enable you to develop your identity as a leader. Based on the principle that personal growth and development is core to successful change management, you will learn about being adaptive and welcoming to the change process. You will also deepen your understanding of how your leadership can shape your organisation’s vision, purpose and values.

Understanding your Organisation, Culture and Workforce

Tuesday morning session

Providing an outline of the theories and approaches to studying human behaviour in organisations, this module enables you to explore adaptive leadership models required for change leadership. Module content includes how leaders talk about change to promote engagement, hierarchies and informal structures, dialogue and negotiation, and developing empathy for change.

Global Health: Politics and Power

Tuesday afternoon session

Focusing on how global health is influenced by power, politics and resource allocation, this module looks at how health is affected by structural, social, legal and political inequalities. Impacting the decisions made within our organisations, we take a closer look at various health ecosystems, ideas and institutions to enhance your awareness of where power lies and the importance of networks and our ability to effect change.

Exploring the Change Process - Site Visits 

Wednesday morning and afternoon sessions

Delivering change in healthcare is particularly challenging, and this module explores the theoretical side of this as well as in-person reflection through site visits. Designed to allow you to witness and apply knowledge, you will visit teams delivering improvements in healthcare through the execution of change management.

Thursday morning 08:00 - 11:00 - Site Visits:

  • Group 1: UCLH – The Emergency Department. A process of radical change in systems and the built environment over 6 years to deliver a highly effective emergency pathway. Lead by David Probert
  • Group 2: MEH – Radically changing the diagnostic pathway at scale through significant changes in clinical roles, education, responsibilities and the built environment.
The Healthcare Ecosystem as a Driver of Change

Thursday morning session

Addressing the changing healthcare ecosystem, this module focuses on patient centred and consumer healthcare, the digitalisation of healthcare, and value-based healthcare. Module topics include the actors in this emerging healthcare system, the impact on healthcare professionals and workforce planning, the role of data analytics in decision-making, patient engagement for improved productivity, and operational challenges.

Design Thinking for Creating Change

Thursday afternoon session

Focusing on patients and customers, this module explores user-centred care through engaging learning and activities. You will look at the human factors and design opportunities that pertain to digital health technologies, and understand the evaluation of the user-centred approach. Enabling leaders to question the implicit assumptions behind current practices to drive innovation, this module harnesses ideas of efficiency and effectiveness.

Measuring Change Outcomes and Impact

Friday morning session

This module examines several ways to design a change management strategy, along with the meaningful measurement of outcomes and impact. You will also work through a digital transformation healthcare case study to explore using organisational metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to test if change is embedded and continuous.

Change Projects and Plans

Friday afternoon session

After working on a personal change project throughout the course, you will present your project during this session. Your project will draw on your learning and group discussions from throughout the week, and through this session you will benefit from input and insights from the faculty and your peers. 

Programme Faculty 

Professor Nora Ann Colton

Professor Nora Colton is the Director of the UCL Global Business School of Health.  She is a health and development economist with extensive experience in change management and strategy.  Previous to this role she was the  UCL Pro-Vice-Provost (Postgraduate Education) and Joint Director of Education at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital.  She has been a Professor of International Economics at Drew University, USA; Dean of Business and Deputy Vice Chancellor at University of East London (UEL), UK; and a visiting professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Electronic Science and Technology (UESTC), Chengdu, China as well as the American University in Beirut (AUB), Lebanon.

She holds a doctorate from University of Oxford, UK.  She also has studied and taught at a number of leading universities including Harvard University; W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University; American University in Cairo; American University in Beirut and  Barcelona Business School at University Pompeu Fabra, Spain. She also holds a certificate in Change Management from Cornell University in the USA.

She has been the recipient of a serial Fulbright and a Carnegie Foundation grant to conduct fieldwork in the Middle East. 

She is the author of numerous journal articles concerned with Middle Eastern economics and politics.  She is also co-author of a book with Elsevier Press entitled Middle East Finance: Missed-opportunities or Future Prospects and has a book forthcoming with Palgrave-Macmillan on the political economy of Yemen.  She has also been a series editor of a book series on Middle East Economics through Palgrave-Macmillan. More recently, she conducts research and publishes on healthcare management and strategic leadership.

She has a particular interest in change management as it relates to the healthcare sector and has designed programmes and taught on healthcare management postgraduate degree programmes as well as health related executive education and training programmes.
 

Dr Rodolfo Catena

Dr Rodolfo Catena is a Lecturer of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Global Business School for Health at University College London. He is a specialist in Value-Based Health Care. Rodolfo has a background in engineering, he has a master’s from UC Berkeley and two degrees from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bologna. Rodolfo has a doctorate in Management Studies from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford where he has specialised in Operations Management.
Rodolfo has contributed to the successful launch of two new master’s degree programmes in healthcare. Prior to returning to academia, Rodolfo has supported public and private organisations across the world in a list of countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium.

Professor Julie Davies

Julie Davies is Deputy Director (EDI) and Director of the MBA and EMBA Health programmes in the UCL Global Business School for Health (GBSH). She is an Associate Editor of Human Resource Development Review and co-chairs the research development committee for the University Forum for Human Resource Development. She is a member of EFMD’s annual MBA conference steering committee. Julie is a Trustee of Kirkwood Hospice where she serves on the investment and finance and resources committees. 
Previously, Julie was a Reader in Leadership Development in the Faculty of Business and Law at Manchester Metropolitan University and Subject Group Leader for Research & Enterprise in Huddersfield Business School. She was Deputy Chief Executive of the Chartered Association of Business Schools where she launched and directed the International Deans’ Programme with EFMD which included study visits with deans to business schools globally. Julie co-facilitates deans’ programmes for the Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools. She was also Director of Administration in City University's School of Social Sciences. Julie managed Queen’s Anniversary Prize winning postgraduate programmes in finance and economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She was Resources Manager in UCL’s Chemistry Department. In the National Health Service, Julie was seconded to the change management team for the opening of Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and she worked in human resources in family and community services, oncology, paediatrics, maternity services, and facilities in central London.
Julie completed her undergraduate degree in Russian and English at Birmingham University and an LLB from the Open University where she also gained an MA in Education. She has a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Sheffield University and Postgraduate Certificate in Personnel from the University of Westminster. Julie received an MBA in Kingston Business School and a PhD in strategic management from Warwick University. Her PhD thesis examined Hybrid upper middle manager strategizing practices. Julie is a Practitioner Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Association of University Administrators. Julie is a qualified executive coach and psychometrics assessor. She has been a visiting scholar in the Centre for the Study of Higher Education in the University of Melbourne.

Professor Preethi John

Dr Preethi John is currently the Deputy Director - MBA Health, Global Business School for Health. She is a human resource healthcare consultant, Faculty in numerous executive education programmes, and an advisor for several NGOs in healthcare. She was the only Asian recipient of the Harvard LEAD Fellowship in 2021. She has experience in capacity building of diverse healthcare human resources in developing countries across South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and has held leadership positions in different organisations.

David Probert

David is the recently appointed chief executive at UCLH. Prior to this, David was chief executive of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, being appointed to that role in April 2016. One of his key achievements was to lay the foundations for Oriel, a pioneering new eye-care research, education and treatment centre in partnership with University College London.
Before he joined Moorfields, David was director of strategic development at UCLH, where he led the planning and development of our two new hospitals – the Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals and the Grafton Way Building for surgery and cancer. David has also held senior operational leadership roles at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust.
David continues to present on a number of academic and training courses based on clinical leadership and management development. He has contributed to a number of publications and journals with clinical and non-clinical colleagues and personal development is a key area of interest and was a Fellow at The Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston, USA. He is also a trustee of a number of charities.

On completion of this course, you will be able to:

  • Understand your leadership style and how it can be applied to leading and managing change in your healthcare organisation.
  • Further advance your career as a high impact leader who can effect transformational change.
  • Recognise the interdependencies of being a change agent in healthcare.
  • Appreciate the numerous catalysts of change related to your organisation, the culture and workforce.
  • Apply new frameworks, tools, case studies and roadmaps to benefit your organisation.
  • Reflect on how power and politics impact you as a leader.
  • Develop tools for stakeholder mapping and engagement, as part of the process towards change.
  • Understand concepts and ideas related to change management and leadership.
  • Identify and evaluate the impact that digital transformation and disruptions are having on your organisation.
  • Demonstrate complex problem solving and decision making skills.
  • Apply learning to your specific organisational challenges and opportunities.
  • Deepen your networks and relationships with leaders in the health sector, along with world leading academics and health experts.

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