Developing leadership in healthcare administration: a competency assessment tool

Despite the many graduate programs that specialize in health administration, healthcare leaders and practitioners have expressed concern about the quality of preparation of health administration graduates. The purpose of this study was to facilitate one part of an integrated approach to leadership development that spans academic and practitioner settings. The approach was to design a competency assessment tool for early careerists who have two to five years of postgraduate experience and who aspire to fill senior leadership positions in complex, provider-based healthcare organizations. Open-ended interviews with key informants and a comprehensive review of relevant literature were done to identify and categorize a set of competencies relevant to early careerists. Based on data from key informants, specific work experiences and academic courses were mapped to each competency, indicating where and how such competencies might be developed. A simple rating system was then added to assess each competency, which resulted in the completion of the tool. Finally, the tool was piloted in a practitioner setting at the Massachusetts General Hospital Administrative Fellowship Program and in an academic setting at the Yale University Health Management Program. The resulting tool includes 52 competencies categorized into four domains: (1) technical skills (operations, finance; information resources, human resources, and strategic planning/external affairs); (2) industry knowledge (clinical process and healthcare institutions); (3) analytic and conceptual reasoning; and (4) interpersonal and emotional intelligence. Early experience with the tool suggests that it can facilitate career planning among graduate students, early careerists, and their mentors. Further, the tool can help directors of both academic and practitioner programs identify strengths and gaps in their existing curricula or training programs. By offering specific competencies linked to work experiences and graduate courses, the tool is an initial step toward promoting collaborative efforts between academic and practitioner programs.