The Competencies of Executive Secretaries of Hospitals under Academic Collaboration Agreement

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to 1) study the key competency and working competency of hospital executive secretaries and 2) study guidelines for the development of competencies of executive secretaries of hospitals under academic collaboration agreement. The research sample were 50 personnel from 6 hospitals which are under academic collaboration agreement with Christian University of Thailand. The research instruments consisted of questionnaires and interview forms. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency distribution, percentage, mean, and standard deviation for the summarized interview.

The results of the research found that the samples gave importance to the key competency of executive secretaries on legitimacy and ethics, with the highest mean score ( = 4.66,  S D = .58)  The working competency of the executive secretaries of the hospitals under academic cooperation agreement revealed the top three average score on meeting management ( = 4.32,  S D = .63), medical office and clinic management ( = 4.24,  S D = .74)   and electronic management and general administration ( = 4.08,  S D = .64).  As for the development guidelines for secretarial competency received from the interview of the samples showed that higher education institutions should emphasize on the quality development of learners during the learning in higher education institutions, should design proper curriculum for medical support departments of the hospital, should provide professional experience or cooperative education  to match with the major course, and arrange direct experienced person to transfer knowledge to students so that they will have competencies which are consistent with the needs of the hospitals under the academic collaboration agreement.