Academic Health Centers Incubate Global Medical Leadership

The world is facing critical health challenges in many domains. Addressing global issues of cost, access, and quality will require new and innovative approaches to our health systems. To lead this response, we will need a new type of health professional, one with strong skills, long-term disruptive thinking, and the ability to operate in a global arena. 

Global Health Challenges, such as infectious disease outbreaks (COVID-19, Ebola), non-communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes), mental health disparities, healthcare workforce shortages, health disparities in low-resource settings, climate change and health impacts, and antimicrobial resistance, require a world-scale approach for which decisive leadership is needed, capable of convening multiple key players. Medical leadership is a global policy priority worldwide as it aims at answering some of these greatest challenges of healthcare. International medical leadership is the response to several challenges and ongoing trends at an international level. International leadership encompasses various skills, traits, and competencies that enable individuals to effectively lead, collaborate, and communicate across cultural, geographical, and organizational boundaries.

Medical leadership skills are of increasing importance in both academia and clinical practice. Medical leaders are well prepared to effectively promote clinical governance, develop multidisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration and achieve cost savings, without compromising the quality of care. While leadership skills are outlined for national settings, international leadership skills in medicine require a more expansive set of competencies. To be well equipped for the global arena they need to develop cultural intelligence and awareness, global perspective and understanding, adaptability and flexibility, strategic thinking and decision-making, effective communication and negotiation, building and leading diverse teams, managing complexity and ambiguity, and embracing a diversity, equity, and inclusion approach. 

Academic health centers (AHCs) face an increasing number of challenges, and many professional societies and other groups have described the clear need for effective leadership of these organizations. While individual leaders can learn and apply new skills, the development of an ideal leadership culture is thought to be vital for the continued success of the AHSCs. Strategic organizational leadership development and a shift in focus away from individual-centric leadership and toward the development of a common, organizational leadership culture and viewpoint are needed.

International collaboration in healthcare is crucial to improved global health outcomes and to enhance the sharing of knowledge and best practices. It also may increase access to quality healthcare, better management of global health crises ( pandemics, for example), enhanced research and innovation, and improved healthcare workforce development.

International collaboration involves multinational teams that share interests, carry out initiatives and promote the results of these to advance knowledge and promote positive changes in healthcare practice. International collaboration allows us to scale up the results of initiatives to different populations, regions and cultures. In addition, international collaboration provides opportunities to develop mutually beneficial relationships and solve global problems. Most importantly, such collaborations create synergy, where working together can achieve greater goals than working separately.

Academic health centers play a vital role in developing future leaders in healthcare. AHCs can serve as leadership incubators through interdisciplinary collaboration, innovative education and training programs, mentorship and coaching, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and strategic partnerships and community engagement.

However, academic medical centers cannot act alone, it is necessary to articulate them in networks that allow them to coordinate their actions, generate strategies on a regional or global scale and be able to operate in functional networks. A good example of the above is the Alliance of Academic Health Centers International (AAHCI) that is a global organization that enables leaders of academic health centers and systems around the world to work collectively to advance health and well-being. AAHCI enhances the ability of its members to lead the way forward in healthcare, biomedical research, and the education of future healthcare professionals. AAHCI seeks to promote collaboration, cooperation, and partnership among academic health centers globally.

I’ll close this article by remembering the words of Anna Lindh:  “Globalization has made us more vulnerable. It creates a world without borders and makes us painfully aware of the limitations of our present instruments, and of politics, to meet its challenges.”  All of us who are in academic medicine must take this into account to propose solutions that go beyond our immediate personal sphere and manage to exercise inclusive leadership of an international nature.