SDA Bocconi and Lundbeck together to explore new frontiers in mental health care

Putting the protection of mental health back at the center of healthcare policies and chronicity management. Perhaps overshadowed by the pandemic emergency, like many other dimensions of public health, mental health services are now back in the spotlight, and investing in training their professionals. The partnership between SDA Bocconi and Lundbeck, a pharmaceutical company specializing in psychiatric and neurological disorders, has led to “Mental Health: Management Approach and Performance Indicators”, an advanced course for professionals in mental health departments, directed by Francesca Lecci, Program Director Associate Professor of Practice di Government, Health and Not for Profit, which will start early next year.

Today, mental health care needs to be revisited from a strategic point of view for the National Health Service, in terms of organization, design of innovative services and the specific skills required, and should be repositioned within the models of integrated chronicity management and patient care.

The new challenges that mental health services have to face mainly concern costs and their dynamics as well as effective value creation based on determinants such as staff motivation, work organization, skill mix, performance measurement, creating company and inter-company networks for quality, and a revised clinical role.

“The challenge of mental health care requires us to revise our organizational and operational models, and service formats, as well as the connections between the various levels of care. And it requires solid and innovative management skills,” says Francesca Lecci.

“The future of mental health calls for care and organizational models of complex, evidence-based treatments,” argues Giuseppe Nicolò, Chairman of Steering Committee and Director of the Mental Health and Pathological Addictions Department, Rome 5 ASL. “We have designed this training as a virtuous meeting point between technical and management needs in order to improve the skills of our professionals and the service delivered to our users, aiming for excellence.”



SDA Bocconi School of Management