Pokhrel, Priyanka, Jones, Anne, Crowe, Michael, Kaphle, Hari Pd., and Liang, Zhanming (2025) Assessment of management competency among senior hospital managers in Nepalese public hospitals: a cross-sectional study. Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management, 20 (3).

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Abstract

Health managers often assume leadership roles with limited formal training. Health managers face ongoing constraints in accessing continuous professional development opportunities related to management competency throughout their careers. The management competency of health service managers is crucial since they perform wide-ranging complex tasks including financial oversight, workforce management, and governance for patient safety. It is thus essential to identify and assess heath managers’ current competency levels to understand the development needs and plans for both organisational and system level capacity building strategies.

A review of literature revealed a lack of studies specifically focused on assessing the competency of senior hospital managers in central level public hospitals in Nepal. While two studies were identified that examined managerial competency, the scope was limited to general hospital managers across all types of hospitals, without distinguishing senior leadership roles or central level hospitals. The two studies provided useful information but are limited because they were conducted prior to the federal democratic republic system in Nepal. With subsequent changes in the Nepalese health system, it is important to understand what the current level of management competency is for senior hospital managers in Nepal.

Therefore, a quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted utilising the Management Competency Assessment Partnership (MCAP) self-assessment tool to measure the current competency level and identify the competency gaps. The data were analysed with RStudio (R 4.3.3) and SPSS (version 29 for Windows). The study highlights competency gaps among senior hospital managers in areas such as resource management, evidence-based decision making, knowledge on healthcare environment, political acumen, and transition management which further underscores the need for prioritised targeted professional development interventions in these domains. A sustained investment in competency building and development will enable senior hospital managers to negotiate the challenges of contemporary hospital systems with greater confidence and competency. Such development approaches ultimately contribute to the long-term success and sustainability of Nepalese hospital management and healthcare settings.

Item ID:	91223
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2204-3136
Copyright Information:	The Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management (APJHM) is the pure gold open access journal. All articles published in the journal provide worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of articles online, immediately on publication under a creative commons license of CC BY-NC 4.0. The Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management (APJHM) does not charge fees to authors or readers. It has adopted a policy to publish articles when ready but aggregates the published articles into issues published three times a year. It is an electronic, online publication.
Date Deposited:	21 Apr 2026 02:09
FoR Codes:	42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4203 Health services and systems > 420306 Health care administration @ 75% 35 COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT, TOURISM AND SERVICES > 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour > 350707 Leadership @ 25%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2002 Evaluation of health and support services > 200206 Health system performance (incl. effectiveness of programs) @ 100%
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