Health services management development: what formal knowledge should support the skills and experience required?

Abstract

This study reports on an analysis of 17 postgraduate programs in health services management. Public information was collected from websites in February 2010. Data analysed included core subject abstracts, admission requirements and length and aims of each course. Findings indicate that only three out of 16 subjects identified as core are common to more than 50% of the programs, with the eight most common individual subjects appearing in only a third of programs. This suggests diversity in what is deemed core foundational knowledge in managing health services and the approach taken to management development. We believe there should be greater consensus on core subjects in a specialist health services management qualification. WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE TOPIC? With changes in the organisational structure of health organisations in Australia over the past two decades, managerial positions and roles have also changed. The educational preparation for those managerial roles would also be expected to have changed but core foundational knowledge should remain similar between the various academic institutions.WHAT DOES THIS PAPER ADD? This paper indicates greater diversity in core knowledge areas in health services management education than expected despite a similar target audience.WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS? There are differences in what are deemed to be core foundational areas of knowledge required in specialist management development between academic programs. Management development requires a balance between knowledge, skills and experience and intending st

Leadership education: a content analysis of postgraduate leadership education programs for health and human service leaders in Australian universities

“…The high variability in subjects makes it difficult to identify best practices in terms of curriculum content. This study establishes that there are distinct differences in the core knowledge and skills offered in different programs across Australia and this is consistent with previous findings (Curry et al, 2020;Ritchie & Yen, 2013). A number of topics that appear in the lower section of the list in Table 3, indicating that they are not as frequently included in coursessuch as systems thinking and project managementshould undoubtedly be afforded greater importance in future program development (Marchildon & Fletcher, 2015;Novo, Landis, & Haley, 2017;Phillips, Stalter, Dolansky, & Lopez, 2016).…”

Australian Health Services Management Courses: A discussion on syllabus

“…Our survey noted considerable variation in syllabus across these courses. This finding was consistent with that of Ritchie and Yen [1] who, in a previous study, identified a lack of consensus on core curriculum and questioned the need for consistency. This paper aims to compare subjects offered in existing courses with those identified by Ritchie and Yen [1].…”

“…This finding was consistent with that of Ritchie and Yen [1] who, in a previous study, identified a lack of consensus on core curriculum and questioned the need for consistency. This paper aims to compare subjects offered in existing courses with those identified by Ritchie and Yen [1]. Further, the extent to which changes reflect the current context of healthcare will guide our discussion.…”

Development and validation of health service management competencies

“…The review of the Master programmes in health service management/health administration confirms the lack of application of such framework in guiding the design of these programmes (Liang et al, 2014). Recent evidence indicates a huge diversity amongst the Australian formal educational programmes in health service management and a lack of agreement on the approach taken to management development (Ritchie and Yen, 2013). In fact, a significant number of healthcare managers do not hold formal management qualifications but have risen up the ranks in accordance with their excellent clinical practice.…”