American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Leadership Competencies
American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Leadership Competencies
| ACHE Domain | ACHE Competency Selected | How This Competency Related to the Capstone Health Care Problem Analysis Proposal |
| Communication and Relationship Management | Communication Skills | Communication competencies are prerequisites for effectively disseminating information and evidence regarding clinical problems as a healthcare professional. According to the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) (2020), communication skills enhance an individual’s ability to communicate clearly and concisely with internal and external audiences, establish and maintain relationships, and facilitate constructive interactions with team members. This competency is consistent with the capstone project analysis because it entails implementing interdisciplinary teams for change. |
| Leadership | Managing Change | Undoubtedly, understanding the change process is essential for inspiring evidence-based interventions to address health disparities. ACHE (2020) contends that effective leadership entails inspiring individuals and organizational excellence by creating a shared vision and successfully managing change. Therefore, this competency complements the need to initiate, implement, and sustain approaches for addressing health disparities. |
| Professionalism | Personal and Professional Accountability | As noted earlier, it is essential to eliminate structural discrimination in healthcare organizations to address health disparities such as access to quality care for disadvantaged patient populations, care coordination issues, and patient safety concerns (Lavizzo-Mourey et al., 2021). Personal and professional accountability is a prerequisite for ensuring equality at the institutional level because it aligns with ethical and professional standards. This competency relates to the capstone healthcare problem because it requires healthcare professionals to uphold ethical and professional practice standards, eliminating structural disparities such as discrimination. |
| Knowledge of the Healthcare Environmental | Healthcare Systems and Organizations | The problem of health disparities prompts healthcare professionals and policymakers to understand the synergies between social determinants of health (SDOH) and domains of quality care, including accessible, affordable, and coordinated care. Therefore, it is essential to understand external and internal organizational environments, including healthcare delivery systems like insurance and reimbursement models. Therefore, this competency aligns with the capstone healthcare problem because it emphasizes understanding care dynamics and their contribution to health disparities. |
| Business Skills and Knowledge | Quality Improvement | Quality improvement is an essential concept in the current healthcare systems because it emphasizes interventions for bolstering care quality, accessibility, and affordability alongside other dimensions of quality care. Healthcare professionals should familiarize themselves with implementing evidence-based recommendations for clinical problems. This competency aligns with the capstone healthcare problem analysis because it entails understanding organizational capacity and aspects that improve dimensions of quality care. |
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2021). National healthcare quality and disparities report (pp. 1-316). AHRQ. https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/research/findings/nhqrdr/2021qdr.pdf
American College of Healthcare Executives. (2020). ACHE healthcare executive: 2020 competencies assessment tool. https://www.ache.org/-/media/ache/career-resource-center/competencies_booklet.pdf.
Carratala, S., & Maxwell, C. (2020). Health disparities by race and ethnicity. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/
Garzón-Orjuela, N., Samacá-Samacá, D., Luque Angulo, S., Mendes Abdala, C., Reveiz, L., & Eslava-Schmalbach, J. (2020). An overview of reviews on strategies to reduce health inequalities. International Journal for Equity in Health, 19(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01299-w
Gollust, S., Cunningham, B., Bokhour, B., Gordon, H., Pope, C., & Saha, S. et al. (2018). What causes racial health care disparities? A mixed-methods study reveals variability in how healthcare providers perceive causal attributions. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 55, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958018762840
Gómez, C., Kleinman, D., Pronk, N., Wrenn Gordon, G., Ochiai, E., & Blakey, C. et al. (2021). Addressing health equity and social determinants of health through Healthy People 2030. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, s249-s257. https://doi.org/10.1097/phh.0000000000001297
Lavizzo-Mourey, R., Besser, R., & Williams, D. (2021). Understanding and mitigating health inequities — past, current, and future directions. New England Journal of Medicine, 384(18), 1681-1684. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp2008628
Suarez-Balcazar, Y., Mirza, M., & Garcia-Ramirez, M. (2017). Health disparities: Understanding and promoting healthy communities. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in The Community, 46(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2018.1386761
