Hospital leaders of the future graduate from first-of-its-kind Higher Diploma

28 November, 2024

Pictured: The graduating class of 2024 with Prof. Veronica Campbell (SETU President), Darrin Taylor (SETU), Prof. Mary Day (CEO, St James’s Hospital), Grace Rothwell (Access and Integration, HSE) and Fiona Keogan (Director of Lean Transformation, St James’s Hospital) 

28 November 2024

A group of healthcare workers from St James’s Hospital, including two colleagues from the HSE, recently became the first in Ireland to graduate with a Higher Diploma in Operational Excellence in Healthcare. This postgraduate course was developed by St James’s Hospital in partnership with South East Technological University (SETU) to train and progress future hospital leaders. The hospital’s graduation ceremony took place on the campus on Friday, 22 November.

The programme is designed to empower staff to lead transformative projects which result in improved patient care and outcomes, aligning with the St James’s Hospital’s strategic goals of enhancing patient outcomes, improving quality of care, ensuring financial and environmental sustainability, expanding access, and advanced education and research.

Being Ireland’s first postgraduate course of-its-kind, it took a real-world approach, with participating students being tasked with developing projects to tackle existing inefficiencies, offering their own unique perspectives and solutions to enhance workflows and streamline processes.

St James’s Hospital places a high emphasis on excellence of delivery, research, innovation and education alongside their academic partner, Trinity College Dublin. The vision for St James’s Hospital is to be a leading healthcare organisation, nationally and internationally, and to improve health outcomes through collaboration and innovation.

CEO of the hospital, Mary Day said: “At St James’s Hospital, our guiding philosophy, and approach of continuous improvement is transforming services for the better.  Education is at the heart of that and this course and its participants will be the hospital leaders of the future, helping us to achieve our strategic ambitions”.