A new core competency for healthcare administrators: Discussing the need for emergency and disaster management education in the graduate healthcare administration curriculum

ABSTRACT

With the increasing number and range of crisis events, disaster and emergency management has become an growing responsibility of healthcare administration. And yet, among Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME)–accredited programs, only one university requires a course in emergency and disaster management. In a survey of 43 healthcare administration graduate students currently employed by a hospital, fewer than half (38.9%) reported workplace-provided emergency preparedness training. Nearly all (96.3%) believed that their education should address emergency and disaster management. And all agreed that climate change and its impact on health should be included. Accordingly, the design and objectives of competency-based curriculum for disaster management should address the needs of health professionals representing multiple settings and lead to certification and education credits reflecting advances in the relevant science and application of its concepts. Healthcare administrators have singular responsibilities in this regard;managing disasters or crises is a critical competency in our rapidly changing world. We propose emergency and disaster management as a core competency for accredited healthcare administration programs. Multiple recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need for healthcare administrators to have the right body of knowledge and skill set to handle emergency and disaster management, and to prepare for increasingly frequent and intense crises. Properly trained healthcare administrators offer enhanced, real-time leadership to more nimbly pivot to the ever-changing parameters of evolving disasters.