“As recent news headlines have highlighted, the demand for health and social care services is growing at an unprecedented rate. Demographic changes, presence of long-term conditions, technological advancements, and patient expectations are just some of the factors driving this growth.

“Addressing the increased demand for service through an efficient integrated care delivery structure, that puts the patient at the centre of the service system, is an idea that has wide support. Developing that integrated framework of care will require thoughtful and systematic approaches however, including new ways of training the healthcare workforce, particularly those who are in middle management and tasked with the essential role of overseeing healthcare operational management.

“The increased demand is reshaping the service environment, making it dynamic and subject to rapid change. To address some of the challenges that come with such changes, it will be essential to provide health sector managers with the skills and knowledge to effectively operationalize issues of quality, productivity, and cost so as to ensure that the health service system delivers dual advantages of patient benefits while remaining efficient.

“This means bringing together different areas such as health systems modelling and engineering; information technology; production-systems; process improvement; informatics; change management; health economics; resource management; and epidemiology and statistics, to provide a broader-based set of skills that will help today’s healthcare staff to manage services efficiently and effectively while ensuring that they are of the highest quality.

“The Institute of Digital Healthcare at Warwick works across disciplines by collaborating with several engineering groups within WMG, along with Warwick Medical School and the NHS, to bring together the necessary disciplines to train staff in the area of healthcare operational management as a way to address today’s complex challenges surrounding the healthcare sector.”