National Center for Healthcare Leadership
The National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes evidence-based best practices within the healthcare leadership, organizational development, and international healthcare spaces. Its mission is dedicated to advancing healthcare leadership and organizational excellence by building diverse, inclusive, and collaborative relationships in the US and abroad. NCHL operates three organizational membership programs – the Leadership Excellence Networks (LENS), the National Council on Administrative Fellowships (NCAF), and the US Cooperative for International Patient Programs (USCIPP) – that in total comprise over 130 US hospitals and health systems and nearly 40 graduate health  management programs at US institutions. History. NCHL was founded in 2001 as the result of a national summit on healthcare leadership funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which identified a need for greater emphasis within the health sector on adopting organizationally based leadership development practices. During its early years, NCHL supported an Advanced Leadership Development Program for healthcare executives and developed the validated National Health Leadership Competency Model. in collaboration with the Hay Group. NCHL also established an invitational symposium and national leadership award dinner, which is held every November in Chicago. In the mid-2000s, NCHL, in collaboration with  the Accrediting Commission on Education for Health Services Administration, supported the evolution of graduate healthcare management education from a knowledge-based to a competency-based approach. By 2007, competency-based education had become an established part of the accreditation process and was expanded further in the 2013 revision of the accrediting guidelines. NCHL's debut organizational membership program, LENS, was founded as an institutional membership group for leading healthcare organizations that recognize that leadership development and talent management programs are integral to their strategic goals. In 2013, NCHL's programs were expanded to include USCIPP, an organizational membership program that  aims to expand global access to US expertise in high-quality healthcare. In 2014, NCHL established a coordinated improvement effort for administrative fellowships, NCAF. NCHL supports members of all three programs through collaboration, education, and research. Current activity. The programs of NCHL are supported primarily through membership fees contributed by organizational members. Participants in NCHL's membership programs vary based on the specific program, but they generally involve leaders who are responsible for a specific leadership activity within their own health system or university, such as healthcare leadership development, international healthcare services, or an administrative fellowship program. Participants identify and  prioritize areas in which support from NCHL can help pursue improvements collaboratively. NCHL engages in several research initiatives, including a number of industrywide benchmarking data collection efforts to support decision-making within NCHL's program member institutions: