Course content

The course introduces sustainability thinking in the health service field with environmental, economic and social sustainability as inputs. At the same time, these dimensions refer to health leadership in the form of comprehensive environmental leadership, long-term resource leadership and human growth and development leadership. The main focus of the course is sustainable development of human resources, with emphasis on occupational health. Key themes are integrity and occupational health, the relationship between occupational health, organizational health and public health, models for developing health-promoting workplaces, and strategies for sustainable staff and leadership development. It includes leaders' own strategies for dealing with various forms of role conflicts and cross-cutting. The themes are illustrated in a health service and public health perspective, which presupposes a reorientation of the health service in a health-promoting and preventive direction. At the same time, this approach extends the understanding of sustainable health leadership from leadership in and of health services to also include leadership to promote health in general and occupational health in particular.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

• have knowledge of sustainability in a health service and public health context
• have in-depth knowledge of occupational health as a leadership responsibility
• have knowledge of organizational conditions that contribute to sustainable work environment
• can explain relationships between occupational health, organizational health and public health

Skills:

• be able to use models for sustainable and health-promoting workplace development
• can elucidate issues related to sustainable work environment
• can assess organizational factors that affect occupational health
• uses sustainable strategies in staff development and in own development as a leader

General competence:

• is conscious of applying knowledge about sustainable healthcare development in innovation processes
• is aware of existing and new occupational health challenges in the health service
• keeps up to date on research on sustainable health services

Learning methods and activities

Varied and student-active forms of learning, alternating between dialogue-based teaching and discussions, where reflections on students' experiences can also contribute to mutual learning. The teaching is collection-based with two sessions of two days over one semester in Ålesund. Compulsory activities: An approved individual assignment is a prerequisite for the exam. The students give each other reader feedback during the work on the assignment. This is organized in groups.

Compulsory assignments

• Individual assignment with peer review

Specific conditions