Training for Health System Improvement: Emerging Lessons from Canadian and US Approaches to Embedded Fellowships

Abstract

Formation pour l' amélioration du système de santé : leçons retenues des programmes de bourses enchâssées dans les systèmes, au Canada et aux États-Unis

Developing Competencies for Health System Impact: Early Lessons learned from the Health System Impact Fellows

“…The HSI Fellowship program provides fellows with an experiential learning opportunity within a health system organization (defined as a public, private, or not-for-profit organization based in Canada with a mandate focused on health, such as a ministry of health, regional health authority, health service delivery organization, health quality council, public health unit, health charity, health professional association, consulting firm with a health-focused mandate, etc.) where they spend the majority of their time, as well as protected time for academic research at a Canadian university; co-supervision and mentorship from a health system leader within the health system organization and an academic supervisor with expertise in HSPR at the university; a professional development training allowance; and participation in a national cohort of fellows and health system and academic leaders that includes an annual in-person National Cohort Retreat and quarterly webinar training sessions in enriched core competencies (for a full description, see CIHR-IHSPR [2016] ; McMahon et al [2019a] ; and McMahon and Tamblyn [2019c] ). Each of these program elements is deliberately aligned with the suite of enriched core competencies and provides opportunities for fellows to complement their research skills with professional competencies and enhanced skills.…”

The Career Outcomes of Health Services and Policy Research Doctoral Graduates

“…Programs such as the European Union' s Innovative Training Networks and the industrial doctorate through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions provide support for academia-industry partnerships and opportunities for doctoral trainees to benefit from hands-on opportunities to innovate with industry and develop transferable skills (Doonan et al 2018;European Commission 2018). In the US, HSPR-specific training programs, such as AcademyHealth' s Delivery System Science Fellowship, have been developed to prepare doctorate holders for careers in delivery organizations (see McMahon et al [2019] in this issue and Kanani et al [2017] for details).…”

“…For example, the recently developed Health System Impact Fellowship program led by the CIHR-IHSPR and CHSPRA provides PhD trainees and post-doctoral fellows with the opportunity to work within health system and related organizations on impact-oriented projects of high priority to their host partner organization. Fellows are supervised and mentored by senior-level leaders in the organization and receive a dedicated training allowance to support their development of an enriched set of core competencies (see Bornstein et al [2018] for details and McMahon et al [2019] in this issue). Although the program is in its early days, 97% of the first cohort of fellows ( n = 46) reported that the fellowship provided them with opportunities to develop their leadership skills, 92% indicated that they had the opportunity to develop their change management and implementation skills and 97% had the opportunity to improve their understanding of health systems and policy-making processes.…”

Training for Impact: PhD Modernization as a Key Resource for Learning Health Systems

“…Canada is not alone in its commitment to modernizing HSPR training to better support and enable health system improvement. The second paper ( McMahon et al 2019a ) examines an innovative fellowship program in the US, AcademyHealth's Delivery System Science Fellowship, and compares its key elements to those of Canada's HSI Fellowship in order to identify lessons learned from different approaches to a common goal and to propose future directions for training modernization in both jurisdictions.…”