The Expected Role and Competency of Graduates Majored in Health Services Management

의료경영 전공자의 의료산업내 역할과 역량

Both undergraduate and graduate programs in health services management(HSM) are recently established in colleges and universities in Korea, and the programs train their students for diverse sectors within the field of healthcare management, including hospitals, nursing facilities, consulting firms, health industries such as pharmaceutical, insurance companies, etc. This study investigates many of the managerial roles expected to graduates from academic curricula in HSM, and required competencies to be successful in their positions. The information of roles and competencies for HSM graduates were collected, and their importances were evaluated by healthcare management experts through a Delphi method. As the result, 11 items for present roles and 13 items for future roles were derived, and 15 and 16 items were derived for present and future competencies respectively. Utilizing the classification of work roles by Timmreck and that of managerial competencies by Robbins, the importance of roles and competencies of healthcare managers was analyzed and interpreted. The major domains of roles at present turned out to be 'organizer', 'planner', 'problem solver', and 'coordinator' in order according to importance. On the other hand, as graduates develop their careers, the domains of future roles would be changed to 'director' and 'planner'. For competencies, the most important domain at present was 'technical skill', but the future important domain was 'interpersonal and emotional intelligence'. The result of this study can be seen as an initial step toward improving the academic curricula of HSM in college and universities and promoting collaborative efforts between academic programs and on-site practices in healthcare industries.