Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Only 12% of the American adults are considered proficiently health literate. Limited health literacy is known to be associated with avoidance of seeking access to healthcare and poor adherence of healthcare instructions. While majority of the research of has been focused on the health literacy level of patients, nurses, and the physicians, few studies have focused on hospital CEOs. While hospital CEOs come with diverse educational backgrounds, Master of Health Services Administration (M.H.S.A) and Master of Health Administration (M.H.A) are known as programs that "groom" future leaders in healthcare. This is why this paper examines if M.H.S.A and M.H.A programs put much emphasis on health literacy. Descriptive analysis was done to examine top 5 ranked M.H.S.A and M.H.A programs' vision, mission statements, and competency models and whether there was any mention of the word 'health literacy.' The result shows that none of the selected programs' vision, mission statements, and competency models mentioned anything in regards to 'health literacy.' If programs fail to stress the importance of health literacy, future hospital CEOs will lack the knowledge regarding the importance of health literacy.
Highlights
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health literacy refers to the social and cognitive capability that can assist the ability of an individual to understand, gain access to, and use health information to sustain and even enhance the level of health of that certain individual (CDC 2016)
12% of the American adults are considered as proficiently health literate and 35% of the same population, which accounts for 77 million people, have either basic or below basic level of health literacy (HHS 2003)
With only 12% of the American adults being considered as proficiently health literate ad 35% of that very population, which accounts for 77 million people, having either basic or below basic level of health literacy (HHS 2003), the importance of health literacy cannot be emphasized enough
Summary
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health literacy refers to the social and cognitive capability that can assist the ability of an individual to understand, gain access to, and use health information to sustain and even enhance the level of health of that certain individual (CDC 2016). While this study did not dig deeper into why this might be the case, Angood (2011) went further to discuss why clinical knowledge in these roles may be beneficial to hospital and health system performance, suggesting that a physician’s knowledge of clinical care models and patient care can play an important role in connecting the gap between medicine and management. This same article suggests that the medical expertise of physician-leaders helps connect upper level management to the clinical workforce in a way that portrays a "common language" among both parties (Angood, 2011). While a physician’s health literacy seems to be advantageous to hospital and health system performance at the C-Suite level, there are still concerns about knowledge development in leadership and healthcare management, two skills commonly assessed across graduate students preparing for careers in health administration and healthcare management (CAHME Self Study Handbook, 2017)
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