UK's Healthcare Executive Leadership Program Expands

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 17, 2014) – University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics and UK HealthCare are collaborating to offer the Executive Healthcare Leadership Program through the Don and Cathy Jacobs Executive Education Center (EEC), beginning Dec. 3, and continuing through May 27, 2015.

The Healthcare Executive Leadership Program has been operating for five years and boasts more than 130 graduated participants. This year’s program is expanding to include not only UK HealthCare professionals but a wide range of other health care leaders representing additional organizations.

This certificate program offers health care executives a cutting-edge curriculum tailored to health care organizations while exposing attendees to a wide range of business and managerial skills to strengthen their work environment.

Director of the Don and Cathy Jacobs Executive Education Center (EEC), Joe Labianca, believes the Healthcare Executive Leadership Program will benefit health care professionals for the future.

"As the U.S. health care system shifts from a fee-for-service model toward a more value-based model that emphasizes improving patient care quality while simultaneously more effectively controlling operating and capital costs, health care professionals will need to become more fluent in fundamental business practices in order to advance both their organizations and their careers," Labianca said. "This program is designed to help these professionals envision the change that will be necessary in their organizations and learn the basic tools to begin acting on that required change."

The Healthcare Executive Leadership Program offers a broad spectrum of topics that focus on specific business skills related to the health care environment including business finance, health care economics and strategic marketing. There are also multiple topics related to management including project management, supply chain management, strategic management, negotiation and conflict management, managing with emotional intelligence and managing value chains. Additional topics offered within the program to expand health care professionals' skill sets include decision making, ethics, customer service, team development, leadership models and communications.

"What makes the program unique is that it includes doctors, nurses, physician assistants and administrators in one program. The change to a value-based model needs to be driven by a greater interaction and silo-breaking across a wide variety of health care professionals," Labianca said. "Programs that are targeted only to one of these professional sets can't generate the momentum needed to radically alter the way that health care is being delivered as effectively as a program that brings these professionals together to tackle common problems as we do."

The outcome of this program, according to Labianca, is that graduates are sparked to initiate change that will have a meaningful impact on their organizations as well as colleagues' and patients' lives and well-being.

The Healthcare Executive Leadership Program includes 10 all-day Friday sessions taught in a highly engaging learning environment held at the Hilary J. Boone Center on UK's campus. In addition to the variety of topics to be covered, guest speakers will also make presentations during these sessions.

Faculty conducting the program's courses include Gatton College of Business and Economics and UK HealthCare instructors. For more information regarding the Healthcare Executive Leadership Program, contact Joe Labianca, director of the Don and Cathy Jacobs Executive Education Center.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Parissa Zargar, Parissa.Zargar@gmail.com, 859-257-8716; Carl Nathe, carl.nathe@uky.edu; 859-257-3200.