The Uniqueness of U.S. Healthcare Management: A Linguistic Analysis of Competency Models and Application to Health Administration Education

摘要

Faculty in healthcare administration education programs frequently discuss whether their curricula contain the right balance between general managerial and healthcare-specific content. Some take the position that a good, basic management education prepares students for any setting, healthcare included. Others consider healthcare so unique that students need significant context and exposure to the industry. Although most educators believe that some mix of general managerial and healthcare-specific skills are needed, no consensus has emerged regarding how much of each is optimal. In this study, we content-analyzed five well known competency models, to assess the general managerial and healthcare-specific qualities articulated by the industry's leaders. Competencies were classified as either specific to healthcare or common to most any industry. Results showed that less than 25% of the competencies contained any mention of healthcare, suggesting that educational needs of health administration students can be satisfied by mostly general managerial content. However, some unique characteristics of healthcare institutions require managers to obtain deeper theoretical knowledge of the context in which these organizations operate. Students must understand why healthcare organizations behave as they do, and the search must continue for the right proportion of general versus specific content in healthcare-management programs.