Training health administrators requires exposure to three main knowledge and skill sets. They include health, administration and research. While other types of knowledge and skills may be included, a master's tenable program in health administration should provide opportunity for participants or trainees to acquire and master these broad content areas.
It can be argued that health related knowledge may be the main component of a course in health administration. Participants should master content in patient satisfaction, patient safety, epidemiology, and social and biological determinants of health and wellness. They should demonstrate mastery of health systems such as hospitals and gain an appreciation for the role of health in national development. For instance, participants should develop an appreciation of the relationship between population health or quality of life and productivity. It is critical for health administrators to understand different ways through which they can strengthen their departments or units by implementing appropriate evidence based knowledge, practices and procedures. Additionally, they must be able to assess the usefulness of methods appropriate for monitoring and evaluating health systems across different countries.
Health administrators should know traits of an effective leader. They must learn that effective leaders get the job done even when they are off the job. They will learn ways of building employee self-confidence and developing a collaborative work environment. Three basic leadership traits they should study are mentoring, coaching and facilitating. It is important that they learn how to mentor others as they will work in an environment where critical decisions to save patients' lives must be taken in specific contexts. Participants must appreciate the fact that the leader who mentors, will help build team confidence. They should know that good leaders must learn when to coach and when to instruct. Coaching implies that they will lead by example. In other words, as leaders they must model appropriate behaviour and attitudes. Facilitating suggests that they learn to create an enabling environment in which subordinates know when to take risks to like save lives. In this way leaders will acquire techniques to build a climate of trust, cooperation and mutual respect. The student administrator will learn how individual members of the team can work together toward achieving collective goals.
Thirdly, it is ideal for participants in a health administration program to attain knowledge of research. They should be able to distinguish between quantitative and qualitative research designs and methods. Knowledge of proposal writing should be taught. This will strengthen their understanding of the role of data in managing, monitoring and evaluating health systems. Students pursuing a degree in health administration should know how to collect, analyse and apply health data such as biology statistics and health care data related to quality of life, morbidity and mortality. A good health administration program should teach academic writing such as style of referencing, English and use of health discourse.
Overall, health administration programs should include one practicum so that participants will be given the opportunity to learn and practice skills in leadership, administration and research. It is palpable that at the end of practice, a variety of authentic assessments are used to determine mastery of the course of study. These could include reflexive journals, diaries, application exercises, incident reports, paper and pencil tests, oral presentations and practical demonstrations. These can prove to be more beneficial than a final thesis.