Epidemiology in a health services administration curriculum: what topics are important to practicing healthcare administrators?

There is no published empirical research into what topics should be covered in a managerial epidemiology course for graduate students in health services administration (HSA). The goal of the research described here was to identify epidemiologic topics seen as important to healthcare executives. A survey was conducted of a convenience sample of alumni the Graduate program in Health Services Administration of Xavier University in Cincinnati Ohio. Alumni were asked to rank 68 epidemiologic topics on a likert-type scale: 1 = Not important; 2 = Slightly Important; 3 = Important; 4 = Very Important; 5 = Not applicable. Demographic characteristics were collected including: age of respondents, gender, years since graduation, and current position. All responses of important (3) and very important (4) were grouped together. Topics were then ranked based on the percent of respondents who answered the question and ranked the topic as a 3 or 4. A total of 858 surveys were mailed to alumni, and 177 completed surveys were returned for a 21% response rate. Respondents were 64% male, and there were similar number of graduates from all age groups and from year of graduation. The largest groups of respondents were CEOs and Managers. Clinical guidelines, Quality and Satisfaction, and Benchmarking ranked highest for number or respondents ranking the topic as important or very important. The majority of graduates indicated that almost all epidemiologic topics are important or very important. Topics dealing with quality were ranked highest by the graduates.