Wednesday 11 March 2026 | 10:45-11:45
Stream: Leading
Chair: Jan Frich CEO, Central Norway Regional Health Authority; Norway

In healthcare, some practices persist long after the evidence against them is clear. These “zombie ideas”- guidelines, tasks, or treatments that refuse to die - consume time, resources, and energy without benefiting patients or staff. This session explores the vital work of de-implementation: how to detect and dismantle low-value practices, challenge entrenched routines, and create space for care that truly matters and build competencies and culture around de-implementation.

Through practical experiences, participants will learn how to:

• Recognize and detect “zombie ideas” that linger despite evidence.
• Systematically identify and stop low-value guidelines and tasks, leading systematic de-implementation.
• Engage patients and staff in questioning what does not add value.
• Build a culture where removing harmful or useless practices is celebrated as progress.
  

Part 1: Zombie Leadership: burying the ideas in health and care that just won't die.

In the shadows of the health and care system lurk leadership ideas that refuse to die. Join us for an interactive session exploring these 'zombie' ideas from a bygone world; ideas that infect today's workplace cultures and spoil all attempts at a better tomorrow.

But spotting a 'zombie' idea is only half the battle - what's the antidote? We'll offer a perspective on leadership that is more human, realistic and evidence-based. A type of leadership that lives in the everyday experience of work, of colleagues helping, supporting and developing one another. A collective type of leadership capable of shifting the future of work and slaying old ideas.

Drawing from The King's Fund's ShiftWorks online learning movement, this session demonstrates how distributed leadership can emerge from anywhere in the health and care workforce. Through interactive exercises, participants will identify zombie ideas in their own organisations and discover practical tools for fostering peer-driven, collective leadership that breaks the patterns of the past.

Dharaa Patel Development Consultant, The King's Fund; UK
Simon Newitt Development Consultant, The King's Fund; UK

Part 2: Leading de-implementation in healthcare: why is it so difficult to stop doing what doesn't work? 

Worldwide, healthcare systems face the challenge of focusing resources on what truly matters and provides value. Despite identifying wasteful practices, we are notoriously ineffective at discontinuing them. We seem to struggle more with de-implementing interventions than with implementing new initiatives. Why is this the case?

Given these challenges, this session will explore how healthcare leaders can eliminate the unnecessary, especially under the pressures of an aging population and increasing chronic diseases. We will present challenges from organizational, clinical, and lived-experience perspectives. Through real-life examples and participant involvement, we aim to define the elements required for successful de-implementation.

Malene Egsgaard-Toft Operational Quality and Patient Safety Lead, Region Zealand; Denmark