Responses on six-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree); scale cropped to 5.2–6.0 to highlight change as ceiling effect applies.
When I took over PHCM9391 Health Organisations, Strategy and Change in 2022, two reviews of the Master of Health Leadership and Management (MHLM; the reviews were a UNSW Academic Program Review and an independent program review in 2021-2022) had found that this core course needed to cover a wider range of topics. I also found that its aims and learning outcomes were unclear, and that its assessment had drifted over time, e.g. a draft SWOT analysis in Week 3, a final version of the same SWOT analysis in Week 6, and a change management plan in Week 11. The first two tasks assessed the same learning outcomes, so change management dominated what was assessed and policy and strategic planning were never formally assessed.
I took the course through the UNSW Course Design Institute in 2022 and used this as an opportunity to conduct a full curriculum review. After consultation I rewrote the course aims, learning outcomes, structure, content and name, and aligned them with the program's accreditation requirements for the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators and the Australasian College of Health Service Management fellowship programs. The course now moves from systems thinking and stakeholder analysis, through organisational listening, change management and strategic planning, to health equity, the policy process and decision-making under complexity. Implementing these changes took two years, given approvals and iterations needed to get changes right.
Enrolments grew from 240 in 2022 to 395 in 2024 and have remained consistent. Most of that growth reflects the success of the MHLM program as a whole, but about a quarter of students now take the course from outside the MHLM. I shared the completed review with the other MHLM convenors to harmonise course design across the program.
My overall satisfaction score on myExperience dropped slightly to 5.41 out of 6 in 2023, the year of greatest change, then rose to 5.72 in 2024 and has held at 5.75 and 5.76 in 2025 and 2026, consistently above the School, Faculty and UNSW means. Feedback satisfaction, historically the weakest of the teaching items reported, has improved the most.