Today's healthcare executives and leaders must have management talent sophisticated
enough to match the increased complexity of the healthcare environment.
Executives are expected to demonstrate measurable outcomes and effectiveness and
to practice evidence-hased management. At the same time, academic and professional
programs are emphasizing the attainment of competencies related to workplace
effeaiveness. The shift to evidence-based management has led to numerous efforts to
define the competencies most appropriate for healthcare.
The Healthcare Leadership Alliance (HLA), a consortium of six major professional
membership organizations, used the research from and experience with their individual
credentialing processes to posit five competency domains common among all
practicing healthcare managers: (1) communication and relationship management,
(2) professionalism, (3) leadership, (4) knowledge of the healthcare system, and
(5) business skills and knowledge. The HLA engaged in a formal process to delineate
the knowledge, skills, and abilities within each domain and to determine which
of these competencies were core or common among the membership of all HLA
associations and which were specialty or specific to the members of one or more HLA
organizations. This process produced 300 competency statements, which were then
organized into the Competency Directory, a unique and interactive database that can
be used for assessing individual and organizational competencies. Overall this work
helps to unify the field of healthcare management and provides a lexicon and a basis
for collaboration among different types of healthcare executives.
This article discusses the steps that the HLA followed. It also presents the HLA
Competency Directory; its application and relevance to the practitioner and academic
communities; and its strengths, limitations, and potential.