What is an MBA Clinical Leadership, and is it the right degree for me?

Sponsored by University of Birmingham Business School

Clinical leadership plays a fundamental role in healthcare around the world, but emerging challenges and growing demands mean more efficient clinical systems and decisive and innovative healthcare leadership are urgently needed.

TopMBA spoke with Iain Snelling and Mark Exworthy, who co-developed the new Online MBA Clinical Leadership offered by the University of Birmingham, to find out more about the AMBA-accredited programme, including why it’s needed and the ideal candidate. 

From ageing populations to increased healthcare costs, greater patient expectations and the growing prevalence of chronic diseases, the importance of both confident clinical and business leadership within the healthcare industry can’t be underestimated.

The Online MBA Clinical Leadership has been developed to meet this growing global demand for health systems to better respond to new and emerging challenges. The programme develops participants to become more adept at managing the competing pressures both on and within healthcare systems, while ensuring that they deliver great value to both patients and society as a whole, explains Professor Exworthy.

“Clinicians, healthcare executives, policymakers and those in related industries will need to understand and be able to respond to these challenges, ensuring that the quality of patient care and access to care are maximised, while the cost of care is contained,” Exworthy added. 

This specialist MBA is jointly delivered by the triple-accredited Birmingham Business School and the long-established Health Services Management Centre – one of the UK’s leading centres for health and social care research, evaluation, teaching and professional development.

While the online MBA aspect covers the fundamentals of business leadership, there is an added focus on health services management with three specialised, healthcare-focused modules: leading clinicians; governance, policy and regulation; and digital health.

“There is evidence globally that health care organisations which are led by clinical staff can perform better than those where there are fewer clinicians in senior management roles,” said Snelling.

Snelling also highlights how, without effective clinical leadership in individual services, improvements cannot be made. “Improved clinical leadership is also crucial at the level of leading individual services. There are many examples of service improvements that have been achieved through clinicians being supported to lead.

“Our specialist MBA will support clinicians in leadership roles, and also those who work with them who want to engage with the clinical context of leadership.”