New master’s in Population Health Management
Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Leiden University will start a new two-year English-taught master’s programme in Population Health Management (PHM) on 1 September 2021. The programme, which has been given the green light by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO), will be offered at LUMC-Campus The Hague and will accommodate around 25 students in the first year.
Health care around the world is facing huge challenges and the coronavirus crisis has only emphasised its vulnerability. The number of people with chronic diseases is increasing and so too is the cost of health care. LUMC Campus The Hague focuses on providing solutions for patient-centred, affordable and accessible care. Programme director Marc Bruijnzeel: ‘The purpose of PHM is to tackle health problems that can affect broad populations at an early stage. The LUMC has therefore chosen PHM as a proactive strategy, and the medical faculty will serve as an innovator to improve health care and population health.’
Innovative solutions
PHM is an innovative field. At LUMC Campus The Hague a multidisciplinary team of doctors, data scientists, management scientists and social scientists are working together to improve people’s health. Their goal is to reduce the ever-growing health disparities between individuals worldwide and to create a sustainable health-care system. There is great demand for specially trained professionals who can play a connecting role between the various disciplines involved.
Students with health-care training can follow the new master’s programme. On completing the programme they will be able to advance novel strategies at the boundary between data, governance and behaviour in order to bring together relevant individuals and organisations for innovative and preventive solutions within the health-care sector. During the programme they will learn the ‘language’ of multidisciplinarity. The programme’s curriculum was developed by four different faculties at Leiden University: Governance and Global Affairs, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Science, and the LUMC.
Education for the future
The master’s curriculum combines online learning and intensive on-campus group weeks. The students will also work on various projects for health-care organisations at LUMC Campus The Hague. They will thus gain practical experience that is essential to making health care more sustainable and valuable.