Leadership Training Program for Medical Staff in Belgium

Today healthcare is facing many challenges in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. There is a need to develop strong leaders who can cope with these challenges. This article describes the process of a leadership training program for healthcare professionals in Belgium (named ‘Clinical Leadership Program’ or ‘CLeP’) in order to develop the future generation of strong healthcare leaders. The process over the past 3 years, refining time frame, content and format & faculty will be discussed. At the start of 2013 a literature study and round up of existing programs were made. Furthermore, a preliminary program was constructed and adapted by different stakeholders. Their feedback taken into account, CLeP was launched 6 months later. From there, 9 different hospitals and 10 groups fulfilled the program. In total 179 healthcare professionals are educated (100 physicians, 37 nurses and 42other healthcare staff). After the completion of the program, in depth interviews served as an evaluation and suggestion for further development of our program. The ‘Clinical Leadership Program’ consists of 2 modules spread over 5 days of training, each covering a different theme. These themes incorporate ‘Me’, ‘Team’, ‘Organization’, ‘Institution’ and ‘Societal impact’ respectively. The first module covers the first two days, while the second module covers day 3-5. After applying, groups of 20 participants follow the 4 months program under the guidance of a senior mentor. They can choose to follow either only the first or both of the modules and whether or not to perform an assignment within their program. In order to develop the future generation of strong healthcare leaders, CLeP was worked out. This article describes the experiences and learnings of our program over the past 3 years. In the future, similar programs will be needed even more.