Health Care Leaders Will Learn from Top Experts to Drive Organizational & Cultural Change Necessary for Success in a New Era of Health Care

October 29, 2018

PHILADELPHIA, PA: Lessons in organizational change management, team-building, and negotiation are on the agenda in a new program designed to fortify leaders in academic medicine and health care for success in an uncertain environment for the field. Penn Medicine and Wharton Executive Education at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania are joining forces to launch an executive health care leadership program that will offer participants a strategic toolkit to cement their ability to lead at a time when science, technology, and economics are reshaping the practice of medicine and altering the field’s economic landscape.

The program, known as Leadership in a New Era of Health Care,” is designed for senior-level leaders in health care and academic medicine — doctors, nurses, scientists, and executives — from across the world. Beginning with its first four-day course in March 2019, the program will provide participants with targeted leadership development experiences and practical skills to drive visionary change in their organizations.

“A commitment to innovation is at the core of everything we do at Penn Medicine, and we’re dedicated to instilling that same passion for improvement and evolution in our approach to leadership,” said J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. “Health care leaders today need a broader skill set: they must be strong negotiators, keen students of business, and have the emotional intelligence necessary to lead diverse teams who are evolving our approaches to patient-centric care and ensuring that our health systems continue to thrive in an era of some uncertainty for our field.”

Leadership in a New Era of Health Care will be led by faculty from both Wharton and Penn Medicine. Presenters will include deans and CEOs from the nation’s top academic medical centers, chairs of large clinical departments, nursing leaders, and senior executives who have built dynamic academic-industry partnerships and overseen transformative new facility projects. Participants will also learn from renowned organizational development and conflict resolution experts.

“Wharton Executive Education excels at providing a holistic approach to leadership development,” said Professor Jagmohan S. Raju, vice dean of Wharton Executive Education. “The US spends more than 18% of its GDP on Healthcare and nearly 1 in every 8 Americans are employed in this sector. Today’s health care sector requires leaders who are interdisciplinary thinkers with the capability to envision the future, and this program is going to help them do just that.”

Participants will have the opportunity to develop advanced leadership skills through a combination of interactive workshops and dynamic presentations. Areas of focus will include organizational and cultural change, negotiation and conflict resolution, relationship management, coalition-building, communication, and strategic decision-making. The program is also designed to support quick-start change management: through a unique, real-time health care challenge, participants will get feedback from peers and faculty to help tackle their most pressing on the job issues and be prepared to initiate new plans when they return to their institutions.

“We need to help our health care leaders stay agile, and build their capacity to pivot and respond strategically to changes in the field, from new digital health advances to changes in reimbursement,” said Caryn Lerman, PhD, vice dean for Strategic Initiatives in the Perelman School of Medicine and John H. Glick Professor in Cancer Research. “Today’s academic medicine leaders and health care executives are highly knowledgeable and motivated. We’ve designed this program to leverage those qualities and arm them with the high-impact skills required to drive real change in the organizations they lead.”

The program builds on ideas Lerman and Jameson outlined in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2018, when they called on academic health systems to make leadership development an organizational priority — an emphasis that they say will also pay off in improved patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes.

For more information, visit WhartonPennMedLeadership.com.

About Penn Medicine

Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $7.8 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $405 million awarded in the 2017 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center — which are recognized as one of the nation’s top “Honor Roll” hospitals by U.S. News & World Report — Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital — the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, a leading provider of highly skilled and compassionate behavioral healthcare.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2017, Penn Medicine provided more than $500 million to benefit our community.

About the Wharton School

Founded in 1881 as the world’s first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is shaping the future of business by incubating ideas, driving insights, and creating leaders who change the world. With a faculty of more than 235 renowned professors, Wharton has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students. Each year 13,000 professionals from around the world advance their careers through Wharton Executive Education’s individual, company-customized, and online programs, and thousands of pre-collegiate students explore business concepts through Wharton’s Global Youth Program. More than 105,000 Wharton alumni form a powerful global network of leaders who transform business every day. For more information, visit www.wharton.upenn.edu.

Media Contact

Hannah Messinger  +1.267.240.2448 Hannah.Messinger@pennmedicine.upenn.edu