The Australasian Institute of Digital Health has opened applications for its new leadership programme to advance women's careers in digital health.

According to a press statement, the six-month Women in Digital Health Leadership programme aims to enable women to "realise and develop their leadership potential to advance the capability of organisations to achieve 'healthier lives, digitally-enabled'".

In the first cohort, 25 participants will be chosen to partake in a personalised learning programme that includes six one-hour individual coaching sessions, on top of peer learning, said AIDH CEO Dr Louise Schaper.

The participants will also finish small group projects that will "have an impact on the digital health community" as part of their learning outcomes. 

Supported by Alcidion, EY, COVIU and Telstra Health, some of Australia's leading digital health players, the programme is accepting applications until 10 January next year.

WHY IT MATTERS

While women make up 75% of the Australian healthcare workforce, they constitute below half of public hospital board chairs, nearly four in ten of private hospital's chief executives, and 38% of state and federal chief medical or health officers, according to the federal government-backed Women in Healthcare Leadership. "Women are the majority of the workforce but do not hold an equitable share of healthcare leadership positions," the organisation said, adding that without gender diversity, the country's healthcare industry "will continue to perpetuate an inequitable health system". 

To ensure diversity in leadership, Patrice R. Wolfe, CEO of revenue cycle management firm AGS Health, previously shared to Healthcare IT News that organisations should provide women with opportunities to develop a sense of leadership purpose, support their motivation to lead, and expose them to crucial business functions such as operations and finance. "Bring high potential females into senior leadership meetings to present about specific projects and create mentoring [programmes] to match those women with senior executives for a year or longer," she said.

THE LARGER TREND

Wendy Chapman, AIDH board member and director of the Centre for Digital Health Transformation, mentioned that a similar programme was developed in the United States. "The team have worked hard to customise the content and experience for leaders in Australia and I am looking forward to working alongside our mentors and the participants," she added.

ON THE RECORD

"There are so many brilliant women in our sector, at various stages of their career. We've built this programme to cater for women at all stages of their leadership career journey," Dr Schaper commented.