Senior health care leaders from countries around the world convened in San Francisco last month at the Advanced Health Leadership Forum (AHLF) to discuss key health care issues that are converging across countries and organizations. 

Part 1 of the forum, which focused on policy, took place last July in Barcelona, Spain. January’s session in San Francisco, Calif., focused on key management techniques, leadership training and strategies for assuring quality and health system change; private health insurance in developing countries and a field trip to Kaiser Permanente. Participants also complete a work-related project with faculty mentors during the interim sessions. The diversity of participants and speakers was key to the interactive discussions and to the overall success of the program.

The 28 AHLF participants attending the San Francisco session hailed from England, the United States, Spain, Korea, The Netherlands, Thailand, Bulgaria, Hungary, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Switzerland and Argentina. Their employers included the National Health Service, health ministries, public and private hospital organizations, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, universities and health care research foundations. There was fantastic bonding among participants and electronic communications methods have been launched to keep them in touch with each other and past program alumni.

Expert faculty were drawn from University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, and six universities in Europe. Guest speakers included: Dr. Ian Morrison, well-known health care futurist; Dr. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Dr. Robert Pearl, CEO, The Permanente Medical Group; Dr. Arnold Milstein, world expert on innovations in purchasing health care; Dr. Molly Coye, founder and CEO, Health Technology Center Institute for the Future; Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, president, product development at Genentech; Dr. Gail Wilensky, senior U.S. health policy consultant; Dr. David Lawrence, retired chairman, Kaiser Permanente; and additional executives from the United Kingdom's National Health Service, WHO, the World Bank and the European Union.

Originators of the program—the University of California’s School of Public Health (Dean Stephen Shortell, Professor Richard Scheffler and Program Administrator Meg Kellogg) and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Professors Guillem Lopez-Casasnovas and Pere Ibern)—will launch the third cycle in Barcelona Friday, July 14- Friday, July 21. Part two will take place in San Francisco, Calif., January 7-13, 2007.

Applications for the next cycle of the Advanced Health Leadership Forum are due by Thursday, March 30. For more information, visit http://ahlf.berkeley.edu/ or E-mail Meg A. Kellogg, program administrator at ahlf@berkeley.edu.  Sponsorship by various funders will enable partial scholarships for selected high-level participants.