Your Course of Study
HBS faculty created this curriculum to help health care delivery leaders manage patient care and improve performance within their organizations. In addition to classroom discussions and team-oriented projects, the leadership training program utilizes the renowned case method pioneered by HBS faculty, an active learning model that teaches you how to assess, analyze, and act upon complex management issues. Rooted in real-life experiences, the case method serves to develop your analytical skills, enhance your judgment, and develop your leadership potential.
Complementing the core curriculum are guest lectures by industry leaders, panel discussions, online tutorials, webcasts and webinars, small group exercises, and project work—all designed to expand upon the case studies and broaden your learning experience.
The global curriculum is composed of three one-week modules as well as intersession project work. Each module builds on and applies key themes from previous modules.
Module 1: Design
Gain the skills to design and lead a competitive health care delivery organization.
Focused on designing flexible, high-performance infrastructures, this module covers a range of topics, including operational design, teamwork, strategy, and leadership.
Operational Design – Analyzing and designing effective operational models, teams, and delivery strategies; understanding the impact of operations, culture, and leadership on safety and errors
Teamwork – Facilitating and managing physician-hospital relationships; exploring the criteria for high-performing teams—a shared understanding of interpersonal dynamics and cognitive biases, as well as a climate that promotes collective learning and collaborative problem solving
Strategy – Improving performance through learning and leadership; examining frameworks for developing and evaluating health care delivery strategies
Leadership – Analyzing the complexities associated with leading clinical organizations; assessing the roles of effective leaders—mentoring, monitoring, directing, and inspiring; emphasizing clinicians as managers and leaders
Module 2: Control
Acquire the management tools and techniques to achieve high performance.
Centered on key management tools and techniques, this module explores the fundamentals of finance and accounting, as well as the latest approaches to leadership, negotiation, and operations management.
Finance and Accounting – Applying accounting controls and capital budgeting processes; assessing the financial health of a department or organization; managing financial and decision-making processes; exploring meaningful incentive programs; writing a business plan
Service Excellence – Discovering the key tenets of service excellence
Negotiation – Learning the key elements of negotiation and strategic decision making; crafting deals and handling complex negotiations; managing the tension between collectively creating value and individually claiming value
Organizational Behavior – Managing difficult personalities; facilitating team decision making processes; exploring how to develop and implement incentives that drive results
Module 3: Innovate
Cultivate a climate that fosters innovation.
Focused on developing an innovative and flexible learning organization, this module examines how to promote a culture of entrepreneurship.
Learning Organizations – Capturing innovation, applying lessons, and exploring effective ways of sharing knowledge across an organization; learning from past successes and failures; improving performance through learning and leadership
Performance – Creating systematic processes that drive performance
Innovation – Developing a learning culture that rewards innovation and inspires appropriate risk taking; analyzing successful models of entrepreneurship; identifying opportunities to pursue entrepreneurship
Between Modules
Apply and test key concepts in your organization.
Between each module, you will have the opportunity to apply and test key concepts through a variety of technology-enhanced activities and projects that are directly relevant to you and your organization.
Between Modules 1 and 2 –
Working at your own pace, you will complete online accounting tutorials and participate in webinars to gauge the impact of various management levers on efficiency, quality, and safety.
You also will perform an organizational assessment designed to get you thinking critically about your organization's strategy and value proposition and its alignment with both the external competitive and regulatory environment as well as the internal "operating system." The internal operating system includes the physical environment, people, technology, and policies.
Between Modules 2 and 3 –
Incorporating the program's key concepts for driving tangible results, you will develop a business plan for a new or existing service within your organization. While the focus of the business plan is of your own choosing, it should represent an issue that is important to your organization. You will have the opportunity to receive feedback on your plan from your peers and can work in a group if you choose.
"This program transformed my way of thinking. By learning from some of the top business and health care leaders in the world and debating today's health care challenges with my colleagues, I was able to contemplate innovative solutions to care delivery."
Susan Grant [Chief Nursing Officer/Associate Dean for Clinical Partnerships], Emory Healthcare/Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, U.S.