Actionable companion · School leadership and instructional improvement

From leadership research to district action: A values-driven academic affiliation between a public medical school and a private healthcare provider: exploring the perceptions of key opinion leaders

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Abstract Introduction In an Academic Health System model where university and clinical care institutions are separate entities, robust agreements are needed for effective working relationships among the involved institutions. There is paucity in the literature around reports of such affiliations, especially those relating to public private partnerships. Accordingly, the overall purpose of this study is to explore the perception of key opinion leaders about the development of a values-driven affiliation between a public medical school and a private healthcare provider in the first integrated Academic Health System in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, namely: Dubai Health. The process of developing the respective affiliation is based on the principles of action research. It involved ongoing cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Methods This study relied on a qualitative phenomenological research design, where 18 primary stakeholders, who played an active role in making the affiliation, were given the option of providing their feedback either in writing, using a tailor-made questionnaire, or in the form of a semi-structured interview. Constructivist epistemology constituted the basis of the entailed interpretive qualitative analysis, which followed the six-step analysis approach initially introduced by Braun and Clarke (2006). Results The qualitative analysis led, as per this study's conceptual framework: “Public Private Affiliation Journey”, to two interconnected themes, namely: Key Milestones and Driving Forces. Within Key Milestones, seven sequential categories were identified: Observing a triggering need, Finding a good match, Seizing the opportunity, Arriving at a common ground, Looking ahead, Venturing for the right reasons, and Reaping the benefits. Within the second theme: Driving Forces, the following three categories were identified: Aspiring for success, Leveraging human qualities, and Doing things the right way. Discussion This study showed that there is a latent potential in forming public private partnerships that can enable the formation and development of Academic Health Systems. It also showed how the guidelines of action research can be set as the basis of the process of partnership formation, and how following those guidelines in such an endeavor maximizes value for all. In addition, it clearly brought forth the importance of having a robust governance structure with committed and engaged leadership, and clear communication channels, and of equipping the physicians with the skills needed to be effective educators. Lastly, this study introduced the “Public Private Affiliation Journey” conceptual framework, which can be deployed in “federated” Academic Health Systems worldwide to increase the chances of success of public private partnerships and to maximize the value attained through them. Keywords: value-based health care; Academic Health System; public private affiliation; Sustainable Development Goals; SDG 3, SDG 4, and SDG 9, and SDG 17; Dubai Health; United Arab Emirates; public health

A 90-day district inquiry

1. Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
2. Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
3. Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
4. Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Leon Du Preez; Farah Otaki; Timo Clemens; Suleiman Al-Hammadi; Adrian Stanley; Samuel B Ho; Paddy Kilian; Pietie Loubser; Riad Bayoumi; Mutairu Ezimokhai; Barry Bedford; Tarek Fathey; Reem AlGurg; Hanan Al Suwaidi; Amer A Sharif; Alawi A Alsheikh-Ali. A values-driven academic affiliation between a public medical school and a private healthcare provider: exploring the perceptions of key opinion leaders. Frontiers in Health Services (2025-08-28). https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2025.1655759

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.