The MHA Program has a process in place to help you develop the necessary competencies to successfully lead in healthcare. Effective healthcare leadership requires that you commit to consistent personal development through self-reflection, exploration, and constant growth. Your development is rooted in feedback – asking for input, accepting feedback, analyzing feedback, and using it for on-going personal improvement. The feedback loop is never complete because we, if open to it, are always evolving.
Let’s talk about how to start your competency development and build the necessary skills to be a successful healthcare leader. Your onboarding will include additional education around the competency model and competency development. Additionally, we will be working alongside you throughout the MHA Program.
End-of-Course Feedback:
Every semester
Every course (core, not electives)
Preceptor Feedback
Administrative Practicum Position Preceptor: End of semester
Internship Preceptor: End of internship
The UK MHA Program has a Competency Development Assessment Plan that helps each student track their competency development progress. Why is this important?
Competency-Based: The MHA Program is competency-based. That means that the program’s curriculum is developed to provide you and your fellow students with opportunities to understand, practice, and apply critical knowledge and a key set of skills – these are layered over multiple courses to help you build confidence, proficiency, and the ability to continue your professional development once you graduate.
Proficiency Scale: The faculty have developed a proficiency scale that describes how you will evolve in your competency development. The scale focuses on development rather than mastery. You will grow your skills in each competency with exposure to new situations and assignments that allow you to “stretch”.
Students will have access to the full-scale during onboarding
The scale is from 1 to 8, in two-point increments. This allows the student to see growth over time. The numbers correlate to descriptors:
1-2 = Beginning (development)
3-4 = Developing
5-6 = Advancing (development)
7-8 = Proficient (developed; has met the threshold for program targets)
Goal: The end goal is to provide you with the experience to apply the course concepts in a variety of situations that prepare you for real-world applications during the program and throughout your professional career.
Demonstrated a basic knowledge level in course assignments and/or experiences. Needs additional opportunities to fully understand the complexity of the skill and skill elements. The student is at the start of their learning in this area.
Student demonstrates more than a basic knowledge, and ability to perform this skill in course assignments and/or observable experiences. The student demonstrates an ability to think with additional complexity. The student requires additional training/exposure to gain continued development in this competency. The student is not yet considering all the variables and decision points in this area.
The student demonstrates an in-depth proficiency of this competency on course assignments and/or observable experiences. The student demonstrates sophisticated knowledge and skill for this competency and can apply it in a variety of situations, and with increasing complexity. They are gaining the ability to develop recommendations and analysis that include many of the critical stakeholders, data points, and metrics in their assignments.
The student demonstrates a broad, in-depth ability in performing the competency across varied and complex situations, with many variables, and with significant complexity. They consider critical stakeholders, data, analysis, metrics, etc. each time they demonstrate this skill. The student can easily explain the relevant process elements and issues in significant detail in discussions and presentations.
The UK MHA competency model was developed by the faculty with input from the MHA Advisory Board, the MHA Young Leaders Alumni Council, alumni feedback, student input, and industry experts.
Students are assessed in courses, by preceptors, and by faculty. Milestone assessed are layered over the program length and scheduled to allow the student to monitor their own development.
To help you track your progress to competency proficiency in the MHA program, we developed a personalized dashboard for each student. The dashboard will track a student’s competency development progress as they move through the program. You will receive feedback every semester including:
This is your toolbox for developing the competencies you need to get a job, develop as a leader, and continue to advance. Learning is not “done” at graduation.
What are the Benefits of a Dashboard?
Input for your Individual Development Plan: This dashboard gives you a summary of your competency development throughout the program and allows you an overview of how you have progressed. Please use your dashboard along with any assessment data you have received (i.e. internship, preceptor, self-assessment) to complete your individual development plan (IDP).
