Competency assessment and development among health-care leaders: results of a cross-sectional survey

In light of the challenges involved in leading a health care organization, it is important that the executives and managers charged with doing so are competent in a variety of areas. However, leading at all organizational levels does not necessarily require the same levels and types of competencies. The purpose of this research is to determine how well competency training works in health care organizations, and to obtain a better understanding of the competencies needed for leaders at different points of their careers and at various organizational levels. Ten health care management competency domains thought to positively influence job performance for health care executives are presented. The study seeks to answer four hypotheses related to self-perceptions of competencies and training opportunities at various hierarchical levels. A survey method was used to sample a subset of the healthcare executive population in the USA, based on three variables of interest, competency training opportunities, self-reported level of competency and hierarchical level. A series of Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted to identify perceived differences in both competency level and training opportunities among respondents of various hierarchical levels. The most significant result of our research is that competency training is effective in health care organizations. The implications and need for additional research are discussed.