Biography

Dr Uma Grob is the former CEO of the Swiss Hospital Association, the umbrella organisation of all 450 private and public Swiss hospitals, providing policy, management, tariff, quality assurances, financial and technical schemes for its members and the Swiss regional and national governments. Uma has in-depth knowledge and practical experience of guiding member hospitals, various stakeholders in health, politicians and the public during a very difficult period of change. This change-management process aimed at cost-effective healthcare delivery, reducing the numbers of healthcare providers, setting up managed care models, establishing medical and managerial standards, and closing the gap between private and public healthcare providers while still assuring equal access to quality care and introducing different tariff structures.  She played an instrumental role in integrating the most important stakeholders and made a crucial contribution to the new direction of the Swiss health system. Her long practical experience as an orthopaedic surgeon and later as a hospital director at the institutional managerial level, as well as her international medical and management experience, consolidated her understanding of the needs of different stakeholders.

Uma has worked for 15 years in various African and Asian countries, including 12 years in Tanzania where she was involved with constructing and establishing the only trauma centre for Tanzania as a model for hospital, health sector and public service reform. She also acted as a personal advisor to the then Minister for Health, Zakia Meghji. She has also worked in rural Tanzania in setting up and leading hospitals in the Lindi region for the Benedictines, in Chiredzi Zimbabwe in a government hospital and in Yei, Southern Sudan with Medecins sans Frontieres. She has also worked in community health in Southern India.

She has a unique combination of experience and knowledge of the health systems of rural African and Asian countries and of the systems of highly developed countries. Uma also has a profound knowledge of health and hospital financing and management, including transitions in health sectors and especially regarding access to healthcare for the poor. Besides German, French, English and Italian, she speaks Kisuaheli fluently.