2007:13 R
Evaluation of Health and Medical Care Administration programmes
The report is made up of two parts: the National Agency´s decisions and reflections, and the assessors´ statement regarding the subject programmes. The National Agency´s decisions and reflections are based on this statement.
The assessment team notes in its report that the Health and Medical Care Administration programme to some extent can be seen as a further education programme rather than a basic education programme. The subject originated as further education for nurses, and the Health and Medical Care Administration programme retains a distinctly practical orientation. The students are mainly working health care staff, primarily nurses, who attend the programme in order to learn to deal with administrative tasks and increased administrative responsibility.
The composition and orientation of the student group has a number of consequences for how the programme is offered. It is a part-time programme, with teaching in the evenings or by distance learning. The latter is offered at Örebro University, which has a well established framework for distance learning in the Health and Medical Care Administration programme.
The subject belongs to different organisational and administrative units at the three different universities: at Göteborg it belongs to the School of Public Administration, at Linköping it is part of the Sociology discipline, which in turn belongs to the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, while at Örebro it is part of the Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics.
The composition of the teaching groups at the three universities reflects the diversity of the subject´s organisational affiliation. According to the assessment team, this has no decisive significance for the content and quality of the programmes, as all three of them have the teaching competence necessary to offer adequate teaching of health and medical care administration. However, the assessors do feel that the programmes´ different orientations — which are the result of their diverse organisational affiliations — should be more clearly indicated in the programmes´ designations and presentations. Linköping is the only university that specifies the programme´s profile by calling it Management of Health and Welfare Organisations.
Postgraduate studies in health and medical care administration are not offered. However, students have the possibility of pursuing postgraduate studies in the main subject of the department where the Health and Medical Care Administration programme is offered, and of specialising in health and medical care administration. The School of Public Administration has a team of researchers specialised in health and medical care within its main subject, Public Administration.
The assessment team also calls for a “minimum catalogue" of shared courses for the subject. Their view is that the programmes should establish a nationally accepted core content for the degree subject Health and Medical Care Administration, and that this could be done within the framework of the national collaboration scheme which exists between programmes in health and medical care administration (known as Riks-HSA, or National HSA, in Swedish). The team particularly underlines the need for strengthening the method input in all the assessed programmes.
Further points made by the assessment team in its report include the suggestion that the programmes´ internationalisation element should be strengthened. Of the evaluated institutions, theSchool of Public Administration at Göteborg University includes the clearest element of internationalisation in its programme. The assessors also point out the importance of improving the formal quality initiatives within the programmes, as well as local cooperation at universities — e.g. by clarifying the structure and function of teaching teams.
Contact person: Carl Sundström, e-mail: forename.surname@hsv.se
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Phone: 08-563 085 00 Fax: 08-563 085 50 Email: hsv@hsv.se
