Abstract
Introduction: It is very important to prioritize the educational needs of managers in the field of health and establish a connection between these needs and the needs of society for a better response. In this regard, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the knowledge needs and skills needed by healthcare management students as future managers of the health society.
Materials and methods: The universities of medical sciences located in the metropolis of Region 10 were considered as the research environment.
Results: The researchers first extracted the available documents and dimensions regarding knowledge and skill indicators and then compiled and evaluated a questionnaire. A skill and knowledge tool was designed in the form of a 35-item questionnaire with 6 questions on skills and 29 questions on knowledge. Also, the questionnaire had adequate face and content validity (CVR = 0.99 and CVI = 0.96). Cronbach's alpha for all areas and the total of the designed tool was estimated at 0.97, which indicates the acceptable reliability of the tool.
Conclusion: "Improving the knowledge of organizations and the organizational structure of the health field", "Improving communication skills with human resources, prioritizing problems, and ethical issues in policy-making" were the most needed by the students. The knowledge and skill tools of health service management students can evaluate the knowledge and skill needs of future managers and help in meeting the needs of society and the effectiveness of human resources.
Extended Abstract
Introduction: In today's changing environment, successful management is impossible without continuous personal development. Therefore, the development and training of managerial skills are one of the requirements for the development and progress of organizations. In other words, every development and change in the organization requires the development and training of the managers of that organization. Nowadays, successful organizations try to use managerial and organizational transitions to survive and continue their activities and enter the global competition. Accepting this transformation requires tools. One of them is the use of appropriate methods to attract talents and train future managers with the approach of competency-based selection and competency planning. Considering the transition to the meritocracy system, this is more significant in all organizations, especially those that rely more on knowledge forces. Managers must have certain characteristics, abilities, competencies, and skills to be effective. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of identifying skills and knowledge in the training of students in the field of healthcare management as qualified people to obtain managerial positions in the hospital.
Materials and methods: The research is done in three stages. The first step was to review the available articles and documents with a systematic study, then to design a researcher-made questionnaire, and to assess the skills and knowledge gaps in the education of healthcare management students in the 10th region. The first step was to collect the required data using a systematic review method. Persian national databases and the country's medical research information portal including SID, Magiran, IranDex, and international English databases including Google Scholar, PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Scopus were searched. According to PRISMA guidelines, the titles, abstracts, and entire articles are evaluated respectively and then analyzed using thematic analysis. Second and third stages: Second and third stages: Questionnaires are considered the most important tools for collecting data in different fields. Therefore, based on the results obtained from the previous stage, the questionnaire was prepared by the research team. Its validity and reliability were measured using Cronbach's alpha and polling. The studied community includes experts in this field, according to the principle of expertise, which includes faculty members in the field of health management. To measure validity, content validation was calculated with two criteria, CVI and CVR. In order to calculate these two criteria, the evaluation form was sent to 7 experts with the qualifications of faculty members or senior managers in the health field. A 7-person panel of experts with the mentioned conditions examined and judged the issues arising from the systematic review in three ranges: "necessary", "useful but not necessary," and "not necessary." The content validity of the questionnaire was measured using I-CVI and S-CVI. The panel of experts (7 people) answered a questionnaire with a Likert spectrum from inappropriate to completely appropriate, with numbers 1 to 4, regarding the relevance of the questions, their clarity, and fluency. To calculate the CVI of each item, the ratio of experts who gave 3 and 4 points to the question was calculated over all experts. In order to determine reliability, the Cronbach's alpha statistical method was used in SPSS software.
Results and discussion: In the first stage, among the 7083 studies searched in the databases with the syntax search term, based on the correspondence of the title and abstract of the articles with the inclusion and exclusion criteria of this study, finally 13 articles were included and analyzed with the thematic approach. Based on the findings of this study, to identify the knowledge and skills of students in the field of healthcare management, the findings are divided into two main categories and fourteen subcategories, including: factors related to knowledge (awareness of the structure and processes of the health field - knowledge of management sciences) and factors related to skills (planning, coordination, organization, leadership, control and evaluation, management of financial resources and budgeting, service management, communication and information management, human resource management, implementation of collaborative and team activities, crisis management, innovation, entrepreneurial recovery, policy and decision-making). For validity measurement, content validation (Content Validation) was calculated with two criteria CVI and CVR. The calculated CVRs, after comparison with the minimum acceptable value of 0.99 for 7 experts, led to the elimination of 36 items out of 71 items found in the systematic review. The content validity of the questionnaire was measured using I-CVI and S-CVI. The content validity indices were acceptable, with the minimum value of I-CVI (with a minimum acceptable value of 0.85 for 7 experts) being 0.71 for the items excluded from the study, and the minimum value of I-CVI for the items remaining in the study being 0.86. The value of S-CVI was 0.96. Thus, a questionnaire with 35 items was distributed online among the students of Health and Medical Services Management in the 10th region. To determine reliability, the Cronbach's alpha statistical method was used in SPSS software. According to the results of Cronbach's alpha coefficient with a value of 0.97, high reliability of the questionnaire items was obtained, and therefore, the data obtained from it can be trusted. Based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the normality of the data was confirmed. After performing the T-test and based on the analysis of the coefficients, a significance was found between the knowledge and management skills of health department managers (at a confidence level of 95 percent). Therefore, the highest score of skill items based on work experience belongs to the questions of "strategic planning skills", "the ability to communicate with human resources", "the skill of guiding employees in line with organizational goals", and "considering ethical issues in decision-making and policy-making".
Conclusion: Health sector management has special sensitivity due to its existential philosophy and its differences with other service sectors. In this regard, the role of the manager is very important. Therefore, decision-makers and policymakers should think carefully about the selection and appointment of hospital managers and evaluate and assess this group in terms of the abilities and skills necessary to manage such an important service sector. Therefore, it is suggested that practical and skill-based training should be emphasized for students of healthcare management to be more suitable to face the challenges of the real world and to be able to respond to the needs of society. Internship management groups should be implemented in the form of separate units in the field of policy-making, ethics, problem prioritization, crisis management, and constructive and effective interaction with human resources.