Managerial KSA

Question:

As the healthcare industry experiences an increased demand for administrators/managers, it is necessary to ensure those serving in these roles have the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) to accomplish the strategic goals of the organization. As you prepare to move forward in your career, what have you identified, (based on research) to be the necessary KSAs to be successful in this role? Describe the impact of successful healthcare administrators (based on research) in at least one organization (direct or non-direct care).

Forum 1

Healthcare administrators plan a critical role in the upkeep and general well-being of our healthcare system.  Due to that fact, based on research I believe that there are four different skills, abilities, and knowledge to accomplish the goals set forth by the organization.

“Teamness”

Although it seems that this is one that would be known to everyone, I believe that it plays such an important role it needs to be mentioned here. If a person, especially a healthcare administrator cannot work as a team the tasks will be very difficult to complete. When working in the healthcare setting some of these teamwork practices are done without thinking, however, there are also some parts that require someone to actively reach out and ask for help or begin working as a team. According to the article Examining the Healthcare Administrator’s Perspective on “Teamness” in Primary Care it discusses how team-based care is one of the four fundamental elements of a high performing primary care practice (Frogner, Snyder, & Hornecker, 2018). This is just one place where you can see how important a team is to a well-functioning practice. Although the practice itself could have the idea of teamness without a healthcare administrator, it is still an important characteristic for the administrator to have to ensure the whole practice is working well together.

Leadership

Leadership can be a complex idea and is a highly desirable skill for healthcare workers. Leadership is such an important component of managers in the healthcare setting that it is something that many places and organizations are discussing the idea that leaders taking a comprehensive program so that they are better prepared to lead as they need to (Sonnio, 2016). These leadership programs would also allow for managers to get a better understanding and a more comprehensive understanding of all components of the field. Although there is no way to completely understand what other people are doing to do their part, but it would create a better understanding of the hard work that they are putting in. Another important piece of leadership is ensuring that the leader is not being a “dictator” and honestly, Jesus has been the best example that anyone could try to live up to. He was always a person that would always make sure that he led by example and did not expect anything of anyone that he would not do himself. In Matthew 18:20-21 you see that Peter is trying to be nice by asking Jesus if he should forgive someone up to seven times, to which Jesus replies that he shouldn’t just forgive them seven times but seventy times seven. So, he is saying that no matter what He has forgiven us for everything we could ever think of so we should do that for other people.

Education

Education is something else that is something that is important, so people are prepared and have the knowledge to prepare a proper team for success. It is also important that once a person obtains their education, but it is also important that the learning process never ends. The idea of continuing education is very important because there is always something that can be gained in knowledge. I think that it is also important to know that continuing education courses and other things that you can get credits for but that is not the only component of continually learning. Continually learning means that you have to learn from other people. Continuing education is a large part of improving patient care for nurses and physicians (Lim, Mustapha, Hansen, Calopitro, Aris, & Christensen, 2020). Although this is more for direct care personnel this still applies to those who don’t directly affect patient care. Education for non-direct care personnel is important because it helps support those who deal with people who deal with patients. Education can also be expensive, but it is also an important because it means that potentially more things like procedures or other things that will increase business so in the long run, further education would be a very good option for bettering a business.

Integrity

Integrity is a huge important piece when it comes to being able to make sure that a business even not in healthcare can be successful. Often times people can look at business people and think many negative things because they have records of being dishonest and doing anything that they could possibly think of just to make more money. Although this is not true of everyone in the business world it is important to understand why people feel this way about many people in the business industry. I believe that this makes it much more important that we follow Jesus’ example to make sure that we are honoring the Lord and being good people of business. In Luke 4:1-13 we see that Jesus was baptized and then went into the wilderness for 40 days. While he was out there in the woods, he was tempted to sin by the devil. But, Jesus, like only Jesus could do, he showed perfect integrity and kept honoring what He was sent to this world to do. He used words from the Old Testament to make sure that He stayed on his proper path.

All of these things individually will not make a business successful, but all of these can make a business more successful and also allows for people to stand behind businesses. When people in managerial roles have these characteristics, it can also mean that people will support them as they may have these more difficult conversations and need help and having support when they need help completing tasks.