Wednesday 11 March 2026 | 13:00 - 14:00
Stream: Leading
Chair: 
Jan Frich Central Norway Regional Health Authority; Norway
Mathieu Louiset PAQS; Belgium

Part 1 - Connecting international experiences: optimising the physician learning journey in leadership and quality improvement

Nearly 20 years after IHI’s white paper call to involve physicians in quality leadership, many hospitals and regions still struggle to embed quality improvement (QI) and clinical leadership into medical identity and daily practice. Learning opportunities remain fragmented and lack alignment across career stages.

What if we could design a learning journey that develops clinical leadership in QI across professions, organizations, and career phases? This session presents experiences from Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands, each targeting a distinct stage in the development of clinical leadership.

By connecting these international approaches, we outline a continuum that equips physicians to lead in QI. Participants will leave with concrete ideas to strengthen clinical leadership in QI across borders, disciplines, and career stages.

Relinde de Koeijer Erasmus University; Netherlands
Kris Vanhaecht Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, KU Leuven; Belgium

Part 2 - Effectiveness of leadership development interventions for healthcare professionals: a systematic umbrella review

Leadership development is essential in healthcare, but what truly works? And what doesn’t? This session shares findings from the first systematic umbrella review of 86 published reviews on leadership training for healthcare professionals. Synthesising data from over 1,600 studies, this presentation highlights evidence-based design elements associated with effective leadership programmes, including experiential learning, coaching, multidisciplinary cohorts, and longitudinal structures. It also exposes key gaps in evaluation, such as over-reliance on self-reported outcomes and lack of long-term or system-level impact data. Attendees will gain a clear overview of what current evidence supports, where caution is warranted, and how future programmes and evaluations can be strengthened. This session is ideal for those designing, commissioning, or researching leadership development initiatives, and for clinical leaders interested in aligning leadership training with real-world healthcare priorities.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Summarise the key findings from 86 reviews on healthcare leadership development interventions, including effective content, methods, and programme design features.
• Critically appraise common limitations in the evaluation of leadership programmes.
• Apply evidence-based principles to the design, delivery, or evaluation of leadership development initiatives in healthcare settings.
  

Juliette Phillipson Thrum Leadership; UK