Healthcare Leadership Cases

Abstract

Healthcare cases can be a powerful tool for leadership development. This project presents a series of four cases that document the key learnings of leaders in healthcare across a range of healthcare contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each case traces the unique story of a protagonist, an accomplished leader in healthcare, who walks us through a predicament encountered during the pandemic and sheds light on their chosen response, challenges encountered, and strategies employed in their pursuit to fulfill their respective leadership roles during this unprecedented time. The cases end with a debrief from the protagonist wherein they reflect on their lessons learned and offer recommendations to emerging leaders in healthcare.

Each case is presented through both video and written narrative form to provide a triangulated, multimodal take on each story. Embedded in these cases are two, staggered sets of discussion questions designed to promote the application and critical analysis of the subject matter. Although each case presents a unique topic (i.e., the digital transformation of a faculty development program; overcoming staff burnout and feelings of hopelessness; building a coordinated community table response to COVID-19; and the development of a COVID-19 task force to serve the South Asian Community) one common thematic thread woven across all cases was the utilization of a collaborative leadership model.

Taken together, the cases are rich, interactive, multimodal and provide users, from all fields of healthcare, an opportunity to grow their skills and challenge their preconceived notions about healthcare leadership. The insights gleaned from the COVID-19 pandemic must be parlayed into future learnings to combat new healthcare crises of the future.