Nigeria is set to witness a paradigm shift in healthcare delivery as the Healthcare Leadership Academy (HLA), an intervention of the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PHN), Health Strategy and Delivery Foundation (HSDF), alongside Cambridge University, Duke University, Lagos Business School, IHI and EpiAFRIC, seeks to develop the capacity of the next generation of healthcare leaders.
With this initiative, Nigeria and the rest of Africa now have a chance to produce healthcare leaders who will excel in governance, management and quality healthcare service provision.
“There is leadership and management deficit at different levels of the healthcare system that impede the delivery of expected quality care. This developmental gap is made evident by the low productivity and skill set of healthcare workers and the poor financial health of the institutions they manage,” Muhammad Ali Pate, co-chair, Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria said, while speaking to the first set of selected participants at the launch of the Healthcare Leadership Academy.
According to Pate, the HLA recognises these challenges and was established to respond to them, using an innovative approach.
The PHN and HSDF brokered and convened partners and institutions to develop the Healthcare Leadership Academy to incorporate leadership, quality improvement and private sector business management approaches in the provision of quality care and governance of institutions.
The course is being delivered by global experts from Cambridge Judge Business School, Institute for Health Improvement and Duke University in the United States of America, alongside Lagos Business School and EpiAfric. The first batch of participants selected for the programme were shortlisted following a screening exercise of submissions by the various healthcare providers.
Graduates of this flagship programme will be armed with requisite skills to bring about transformational and sustainable changes to their facilities and communities upon completion in December 2015.
Muntaqa Umar-Sadiq, chief executive officer, PHN, said the Healthcare Leadership Academy is a public-private collaboration designed to institutionalise leadership as well as private sector business and financial management approaches in the public health system.
“The HLA is an important step in developing synergies between the capabilities of the private sector and the severe gaps in the leadership and managerial capacity of public healthcare institutional leaders,” Umar-sadiq said.
He added that the HLA is a bold innovation that pooled non-traditional but complimentary partnerships to build health worker and policy maker capacity and disrupt the poor health system performance.
Kelechi Ohiri, CEO of HSDF, said the balanced scorecard approach of the programme that would deliver world-class content and ensure capabilities are built across four critical areas: financial management, leadership and organisational development, quality improvement and population health, with the content adapted to the local context and a ‘field and forum’ approach that combines in-class curricula with real life, hands-on projects that are relevant to their respective organisations.
Health and education are two of the three critical ingredients used in assessing the Human Development Index. The HLA fulfils the responsibility of improving the capacity of health workers, while also plugging the gaps that drive health tourism.
Afua Osie, director, Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education, said HLA has the potential to be the premier institution for building leadership capabilities in the African health sector, given the commitment and partnership that catalysed its emergence.
On his part, Chikwe Ihekweazu, founding partner, EpiAfric, added that the course content will be delivered over ten weekends by global experts who have extensive experience in teaching executives and policymakers.
“Unique for a course of this kind is the subsequent nine month fellowship which ensures that the capabilities built in each of the aforementioned areas are directly applied to their respective healthcare organisations to improve system performance and health outcomes,” Ihekweazu said.
Speaking further, Shola David-Borha, CEO, Stanbic IBTC Bank and board member, PHN, while formally inaugurating the first class of the HLA, called on other private sector companies to join the platform provided by the Private Sector Health Alliance to offer their capabilities and resources to complement government’s effort in dramatically improving health outcomes through innovation and partnerships.
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