Strengthening Hospital Managers Capacity in LMICs to Address the Changing Population Health Needs

Despite occupying a large percentage of the health budget, most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) hospitals struggle to provide quality and safe healthcare due to the hospital managers’ lack of knowledge and ability in efficiently planning and managing hospitals. This impacts the health systems’ role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universal health coverage (UHC). The Community Health Sciences (CHS) Department at Aga Khan University has developed a course in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to help hospital managers plan and operate hospitals effectively and efficiently. Offered thrice in 2021, the training material included 10 key hospital performance-boosting topics, including a case-study-based pedagogy to assist hospital managers in developing a hospital performance improvement plan. These hospital management courses trained 107 hospital managers who developed hospital improvement plans and were well evaluated by them. Four hundred applications were received within 24 h of the course’s advertisement. Hospital managers’ limited computer literacy and language inadequacy were identified as barriers. There is a need and urgency to train LMIC hospital managers to manage hospitals, use resources efficiently, and improve performance through short-term strategies like regular courses and long-term strategies like a holistic graduate degree that accelerates SDGs and UHC.