Managerial Competency of Primary Healthcare Facility Managers in the Selected District Councils in Tanzania

Abstract

Understanding the managerial competency of healthcare managers is very important. However, limited evidence exists on the managerial competency of primary healthcare facility managers in low- and middle-income countries. The purpose of this research was to examine the managerial competency of primary healthcare facility managers in the selected District Councils in Tanzania. This research is grounded on positivism philosophy, a cross-sectional survey descriptive research design, a complete enumeration sampling strategy and a survey used to collect primary data from 102 public primary healthcare facility managers located in Kondoa, Iramba and Sumbawanga District Councils in Tanzania. To examine the managerial competency of primary healthcare facility managers, the study adapted the MCAP framework and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 used to analyze the data. For the communication and relationship management domain, 74.5% were competent, while 25.5% were less than fully competent. Likewise, 65.68% of them were competent, while 34.32% were less than competent in the knowledge of the healthcare environment domain. Equally, 62.74% and 37.26% of the primary healthcare facility managers were competent and less than competent, respectively, in operations, administration and resources management domains. Correspondingly, 67.65% and 32.35% of the primary healthcare facility managers were competent and less than competent, respectively, in evidence-informed decision-making. On the same token, 74.55% and 25.45% were competent and less than competent, respectively, in enabling and managing change. The study used primary data and contributed recently well-worth and highly demanded knowledge on the managerial competency of healthcare managers in the LMICs.