Introduction
The term competency is used in the current organizational literature to indicate performance excellence in an organization. Competency indicates the broad concepts applied in organizations to provide demonstrable performance outputs that express an organization’s dedication to achieving a set of minimum standards required for excellent workplace performance.
The behaviors and concepts relate to skills, abilities, knowledge, and personal attributes that are important in performing certain functions for an organization to succeed in its various roles. In the healthcare sector, the competencies relate to the effective provision of healthcare services. The competency framework defines the knowledge, skills, and attributes that are needed by the people who work in an organization or in a particular profession, in this case, the health facility (Street, Gold & Manning, 2013). In an organizational setting, a competency framework guides the determination of the skills and abilities necessary for each individual position to achieve business objectives, organizational culture, and values.
Failing to put in place competency frameworks for healthcare delivery is detrimental. Firstly, without a competency framework, it is difficult to ensure accountability for healthcare practitioners. In many cases, providing healthcare is a matter of life and death. Hence, there is no space for unjustifiable and controllable errors that may greatly jeopardize a patient’s life. Secondly, the lack of a competency framework can greatly affect the level of knowledge, skills, and abilities of professionals who join the healthcare system (Battel-Kirk et al., 2012). Thirdly, healthcare provision goes hand in hand with technology and facilities. In this case, competency frameworks help the healthcare institution to acquire the right instruments and technologies that will ensure that the organization can meet the requirements of the best healthcare as guided by the competency frameworks (Englander et al., 2013).
Lastly, providing healthcare requires collaboration between different healthcare providers, and hence, communication is important in ensuring the success of the collaborations. A competency framework that is deployed in the healthcare sector incorporates nine competencies that are important in guiding the provision of healthcare and the healthcare promotion practice. These competencies include “enabling change, advocating for health care, mediating through partnership, communication, leadership, assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation, and research” (Dempsey, Barry, & Battel-Kirk, 2011, p. 7). These competencies must be incorporated into the practice of healthcare promotion. This paper will comprehensively discuss three of the nine competencies by highlighting their implications and significance in terms of healthcare provision. The competencies that will be discussed include enabling change, communication, and leadership.
Enabling Change
Outline of “Enable Change” Competency Domain
The competency framework in healthcare promotion practice facilitates and enables change. Change is an inevitable process, which allows healthcare services to continually improve to reflect the best practices in the sector. The competency statement under this competency is to, “enable individuals, groups, communities, and organisations to build the capacity for health promotion action to improve health and reduce health inequalities” (Dempsey et al., 2011, p. 9). From this statement, it is evident that the competence is very vital in its focus on all stakeholders to ensure that they build the capacity to provide good healthcare to all people. The competence allows healthcare promotion practitioners to work collaboratively across various sectors to influence the enactment and development of public policies that can influence health positively while at the same time reducing health inequalities (Patrick, Capetola, Townsend & Nuttman, 2011). It is important to note that healthcare provision involves different stakeholders, including the healthcare provision facilities and personnel, policymakers, and the communities that act as the recipients of the healthcare services. The goal is to guarantee an all-inclusive environment that is ideal for good health care provision. In this case, the competency framework allows the stakeholders to work collaboratively to ensure the enactment of good healthcare public policies that can facilitate such an environment (Dempsey et al., 2011). While enacting the policies, the involvement of all stakeholders is significant since it allows the formation of a standard framework that addresses the various stakeholders’ health care demands. For instance, professional healthcare personnel are important in this process in offering professional advice and contribution to ensure that the policies that are developed reach the professional and technical thresholds to facilitate quality health care.
Description of Specific Aspects of the Competency Domain
The competency of enabling change paves a way for the use of health promotion approaches that support empowerment, equity, participation, and partnership to create an environment that promotes health (Dempsey et al., 2011). Just like the policymaking process, healthcare provision is a collaborative effort, which requires the participation and partnership of different stakeholders to ensure equity and empowerment in the healthcare promotion practice. In this case, the aspect of training is imperative. Healthcare practitioners have to be empowered through the right training and resources that will ensure that the patient can receive the best healthcare as guided by the requirements of healthcare best practices. In addition, the concept of partnerships between different healthcare providers, healthcare organisations, communities, and the government is critical in this competency domain to guide the establishment of best practices of healthcare provision (Patrick et al., 2011). Health care equity is very important since it allows all people to have access to health care wherever they are and/or whenever they want.
Enabling change in the healthcare promotion practice involves the use of community improvement strategies that reinforce societal involvement with the view of establishing the ability for the community to benefit from health endorsement campaigns (Dempsey et al., 2011). The journey towards a healthy community starts at the community level. Through the participation of the community, healthcare providers can easily identify the healthcare needs of the populations and consequently put in place measures that will facilitate the availability of good healthcare to the community (Englander et al., 2013). In addition, community participation and partnership allows society members to be in charge and to take control over their health. Such close interaction with the health providers allows awareness to be created with reference to good health living that translated to fewer cases of illnesses. Such an outcome is a benefit to the whole community. While implementing healthcare programmes, community involvement allows such programmes to incorporate aspects that will best ensure that they (programmes) can address the specific healthcare needs of the given community. Further, the contribution allows the community to own the programmes that are being put in place to promote health care (Dempsey et al., 2011).
Enabling change facilitates the development of personal skills that will maintain and improve health. The provision of health care requires chipping in of all stakeholders. The input of healthcare providers, personnel, and patients is very important in ensuring that the delivered services respond to the health needs of the given community. For instance, through the competency framework, it is possible to ensure that the medical practitioners are trained and provided with the required skills that will ensure that they provide the proper guide on health care to the specific community. Without such facilitation, it is easy to have a mismatch between the available health care, medical skills, and the health care needs that should be addressed (Battel-Kirk et al., 2012). Such a scenario can be very detrimental to the overall health status of the targeted population. In addition, it is important to have a community that has the necessary health skills and habits, which will lead to the overall health improvement in the wider population. For instance, through such partnerships and collaborations, community members can be provided with skills that will promote a healthy living through the development of the necessary basic skills, which can lead to the avoidance of some common health problems (Battel-Kirk et al., 2012).
Examples in Literature
According to Bartholomew, Parcel, Kok, Gottlieb, and Fernandez (2013), enabling change is a very important aspect towards ensuring that health promotion activities can help to facilitate the required changes for improved healthcare in the society. In this research, the researchers investigate the importance of competency frameworks in enabling change. The findings prove that enabling change is indeed very important and relevant for health promotion practitioners who help to facilitate the process of change. The competency framework facilitates working in collaboration with key parties to reorient health services and other provisions to promote people’s wellbeing while at the same time reducing health inequalities. Ensuring that the healthcare services are responsive to the health care needs of the society requires working together to ensure the accessibility of the necessary resources, policies, and skills to facilitate such processes.
Evidence Informed Practice
The research paper by Bartholomew et al. (2013) makes important assertions relating to the importance of the competency of enabling change by pointing out to the inevitability of change. Technologies, lifestyles, and other important dynamics demand changes in terms of how healthcare is provided to pave a way for update equipment and approaches to health care provision. Consequently, during the practice of healthcare, changes must be accepted and incorporated to ensure the continuity of services and quality care, whether through trainings or through the acquisitions of better technologies, or both.
Reflection on the Competency
The competency is a very important learning point since it has allowed the appreciation of the process of change in the demand for better services and in meeting the ever-changing needs of patients or customers in an organisation. In my workplace, a change is a very vital aspect as evidenced in the requirement for customer feedback, which allows the organisation to recognise the emerging trends and changes and consequently adopt new approaches to customer service delivery. Hence, our involvement in the policymaking processes allows our workplace concerns and input to be critically considered to facilitate the making of good policies that capture all workers’ demands. All staff members work together during the making of the policies. This strategy ensures that adequate support is given during the implementation of such policies in terms of resources and the stakeholder input. In the end, the policies help to facilitate a good workplace environment.
Key Learning Moments on the Competency
The key learning moments in this competency is through my active participation in brainstorming important suggestions that my organisation can take to ensure that it continues to satisfy customers in the rapidly changing market and workplace environment. In this case, it is important for healthcare stakeholders to work closely together to ensure that that the health care needs in the given target population are identified accurately (Bartholomew et al., 2011). Once the approaches are identified, the stakeholders will be in a better position to enact policies that will create a good platform for meeting the health needs of the people. In addition, the policies and the approaches will ensure that the stakeholders can recognise and allocate the right resources towards health care provision and care giving skills development from the highest to the lowest levels of health care service delivery, hence leading to a healthy society. In the whole process, the involvement of the target population is also of great significance. It allows the process of coming up with approaches, skills, and policies to which they can relate. This involvement leads to their ownership of all the programmes that have been put in place, hence leading to few conflicts and consequently better health outcomes to the society (Patrick et al., 2011).
Communication
Outline of the Communication Competency Domain
Communication is a very vital activity in any setting and most importantly, in the health promotion practice. Health communication is viewed as a very important aspect in all stages of health and wellbeing, including disease prevention, quality of life, and health promotion. Through health communication, the focus shifts most to prevention, rather than treatment. Such a shift indicates a more focus on understanding human behaviour such as the role of risk perceptions, social norms, emotions, and uncertainty in health behaviours, all of which are very critical in determining the health status of a community and the expected health outcomes in the larger society. In this case, the competency framework facilitates communication to promote healthy living in the target populations.
This competency allows health promotion practitioners to accurately determine and use the appropriate media and information technology to reach the target populations. For instance, in large-scale or nationwide health promotion campaigns, a combination of information technologies and media is used to reach all groups of the targeted audience. In this case, promotion through the television, radio, internet and newspapers ensures that all target populations can receive the intended message (Patrick et al., 2011). In the event that a single method or media technology is overlooked, the health promotion process may lead to a complete blackout of information on specific populations that do not have access to the other media platforms. In more specific health promotion activities that target a specific group or a community, the communication competency allows the health promotion practitioners to narrow down to the appropriate methods that can ensure that the right information reaches the right population (Englander et al., 2013).
Description of Specific Aspects of the Competency Domain
The communication competency domain upholds the utilisation of effectual communication tactics, including printed, spoken, non-verbal, and the taking of notes by health promotion practitioners. In this case, it is worth noting that various communication approaches can be used during the healthcare promotion activities to various audiences and stakeholders for appropriate actions to be addressed. For instance, communicating to policymakers requires technical communication, which is also backed by relevant evidence and facts, which can stimulate actions among the policymakers as desired by the health promotion practitioners (Patrick et al., 2011). Such communication should be supported by both written and spoken language when advocating the proposed health promotion activities (Battel-Kirk et al., 2012). Of all the aspects of communication, the accuracy, consistency, and availability of information are very important to promote better healthy behaviours. Consequently, at all levels, it is important to ensure that communication whether on paper, spoken, or non-verbal, meets the threshold of truth, reliability, and availability of information to inform accurate decision-making. The other crucial aspect of the communication competency domain is the deployment of information expertise and other hi-tech platforms to obtain and circulate wellbeing support information. The communication competency upholds the utilisation of culturally apposite messaging procedures that suit unambiguous categories of people and/or settings (Dempsey et al., 2011). For instance, in some communities, promoting sexual health awareness is deemed inappropriate and hence the need to collaborate with key individuals in the community to find the appropriate ways through which such information can reach the targeted populations such as the youths. On the contrary, health promotion practitioners can easily find their approaches backfiring since they can be labelled immoral. In other communities, illiteracy is a big hindrance towards effective health promotion activities. Hence, it is important to find appropriate approaches that will ensure that the illiterate members of the community can get the required health awareness information in a manner that they can understand. The communication competency upholds the concept of interpersonal interaction and teamwork to encourage people, teams, societies, and institutions to advance their physical wellbeing. The creation of awareness is not just the mandate of health promotion practitioners. Rather, it incorporates different people such as the community members who continue to communicate such information, even after the actual health promotion activities are terminated.
Example in Literature
In the research titled, ‘Developing a competency-based pan-European accreditation framework for health promotion’, Battel-Kirk et al. (2012) support the importance of communication in promotion of health care since it facilitates the interaction, passing of information, and other critical opinions that lead to better healthcare. Health promotion activities target different members of the society. For the impact to be felt, the process requires a close understanding and proper communication of the norms and practices of such cultures to ensure that the passed information is interpreted in a positive manner. Hence, such approaches require health promotion practitioners to be aware of cultural connotations of the presented information. The goal is to ensure that the information is created from an ‘insider’ perspective, rather than adopting the outsider method.
Evidence Informed Practice
The above research paper points out to the importance of putting in place communication channels that allow all stakeholders to contribute important information towards health promotion activities. Without such communication, any health promotion activity is doomed to fail, as it may not address the relevant needs in a community. Interpersonal communication and group work make it possible to utilise the skills and information that is passed by the health promotion practitioners to achieve continuity and transition from information to a change of behaviour. Without such skills, it becomes difficult for the community to effectively transition to better health behaviours. Such an outcome may imply that the health promotion activities have been a total waste of money and time (Bartholomew et al., 2011). With the right interpersonal skills, the community can easily ensure that the information is passed from one individual to another in a progressive manner. The created awareness leads to behavioural changes that can lead to better healthcare outcomes as envisioned by the health promotion practitioners.
Reflection on the Competency
Communication is highly emphasised in my organisation as evidenced through the open door policy and open meetings that allow employees to air their opinions and feelings that relate to issues on service delivery among others. Generating information is not enough. It can be complete without ensuring that it reaches the target population on a timely and accurate manner. For instance, when targeting the youth, the use of social media can be more appropriate for such a target. In other communities, the use of oral messages through local leaders and health promotion officers is more appropriate. Consequently, communication competency is very important in guiding and determining the appropriate information technologies and media platforms that can reach the targeted population appropriately and accurately.
Key Learning Moments on the Competency
The key learning moments are evident, especially during occasions where each employee is allowed to give feedback on various strategic directions that the organisation takes. Further, addressing customer feedback is an important learning process that highlights the importance of communication in any organisation.
Leadership
Outline of the Competency
In any setting, leadership plays an important role in ensuring the achievement of the goals and desirable outcomes. Leadership helps groups to retain focus and effort towards the accomplishment of individual or collective goals. Leadership prevails in virtually all heath promotion activities (Street et al., 2013). Consequently, leadership is a very desirable competency in health promotion since it guarantees accountability and responsibility for the success or failure of health promotion activities. The leadership competency is very important in facilitating various health care aspects, as it will be discussed in this section.
Description of the Competency
The leadership competency is a very central domain that allows health promotion officers to interact with partners to consent on a collective dream and a premeditated course for health promotion actions. It is worth noting the role of health promotion cannot be left to one individual or an organisation. Rather, it requires the involvement and support of all parties at all levels. Such support ensures a clear focus towards the achievement of the goals of the health promotion activities. In other words, leadership ensures that all stakeholders have a mutual vision and planned bearing that allows the prioritisation and support of various activities that ensure the achievement of the shared vision. With support from the relevant shareholders, the leadership can now focus on the implementation of the agreed upon activities towards the intended outcomes (Bartholomew et al., 2011). However, without the backup, it becomes difficult to implement any health care activities because of the anticipated difficulties in terms of getting the required resources and approaches that can facilitate the achievement of the required outcomes (Englander et al., 2013).
The leadership competency upholds the issue of authorisation and party contribution (Dempsey et al., 2011). Leadership plays an important role in ensuring concerted efforts such as fellowship, impetus, arbitration, clash management, and decision-making, which are very important in ensuring that the health promotion activities and programmes remain on track towards better health outcomes (Englander et al., 2013). Health promotion is a team or group activity that requires the ownership and dedication of all stakeholders towards the final goal. Leadership in health matters helps to recognise the superiority of teamwork in achieving success, hence putting in place the right approaches that ensure combined efforts and dedication through fellowship to the overall success of the programmes. The leadership competency also allows health promotion practitioners to understand that whenever teams or groups are in place, conflicts and other problems are bound to happen. Without a proper leadership plan, such inconsistencies may derail the progress of a health facility if they are not addressed well (Battel-Kirk et al., 2012). They can lead to overall termination of the programme. As such, leadership facilitates conflict resolution and problem solving approaches that ensure that any troubles are solved whenever they arise during the course of the implementation process of the health promotion activities.
Leadership allows the integration of fresh information to advance the health care exercise while at the same time countering the up-and-coming issues in health support. The field of healthcare provision is ever changing as evidenced by the witnessed various changes in technology, health outcomes, and living styles among others factors that require a review of the existing healthcare approaches. In this case, leadership plays a vital role in ensuring the identification of these changes. It helps to establish mechanisms towards the adoption of the changes to reflect the emerging best practices in healthcare delivery (Patrick et al., 2011). Without the adoption of new knowledge, the existing approaches that are already or almost obsolete can be applied, thus worsening the health status of a given community. Therefore, leadership has a strong mandate in facilitating an environment where stakeholders can identity and propose important changes to the health practice with the view of paving a way for the adoption of the appropriate and effective health promotion procedures, which will lead to better health outcomes in a given society. The leadership competency upholds group and institutional learning to boost health promotion principles (Dempsey et al., 2011). In this case, any health promotion exercise requires well-trained and motivated individuals to ensure that the health promotion activities are carried out professionally and responsibly to realise the right outcomes for all the targeted populations.
Example in Literature
In the research by Englander et al. (2013), the role of leadership as an important competency for health promotion is highly emphasised. Leadership is viewed as very critical in ensuring that all stakeholders retain focus on the overall goals of the health promotion activities. Englander et al. (2013) demonstrate how leadership competency is of great significance since it allows and contributes towards the allocation and handling of resources that are set aside for health endorsement exercises. Since resources are rare, the role of resource allotment and supervision cannot be ignored in the quest of ensuring better healthcare outcomes for a given society or community. Englander et al. (2013) present the important role of leadership in guiding the prioritisation of resources and proper management of the same at all stages of the implementation of health promotion activities.
Evidence Informed Practice
The paper confirms that without leadership, it is difficult for health promotion activities to reach their goals. Hence, any successful health promotion activities that the paper highlights have a string leadership to lead the way. For instance, through proper leadership, the involvement of stakeholders can allow the identification of urgent health needs to pave a way for the allocation of adequate resources for the success of the programme towards addressing the identified needs. Without such prioritisation, it will be difficult to convince funding agencies towards providing the necessary resources to support the projects. Through ownership of the health promotion activities, the mandate of the health promotion practitioners is reduced. Hence, it becomes easier, owing to the support from stakeholders and the availability of the required resources that guarantee the smooth implementation of all activities
Reflection on the Competency
The subject of leaders is present in each department in my organisation. All staff members from the departmental level have adopted leadership frameworks that guide them towards achieving the departmental goals. Without such leadership, it would be difficult to have accountability on the outcomes of the organisation’s activities. Leadership plays an important role in the process of identifying facts and skill gaps that are necessary for the achievement of the expected health promotion outcomes. Leadership guarantees that these needs and knowledge gaps are addressed properly. It ensures that the required resources are allocated towards training staff members at the organisation level who will then be at the forefront in guiding the overall health promotion activities.
Key Learning Moments on the Competency
The main key learning moments on competency are evident in my organisation based on its leadership that keeps the whole group motivated and firmly focused on the achievement of the main goals. The leadership competency allows my organisation’s staff members to work closely with each other while at the same time inspiring partners in advocating any necessary transformations to improve their performance. It is important to note that health promotion practitioners can only respond to known healthcare needs in a given community. Therefore, it is only through proper networking and motivation of stakeholders that health promotion activities can be receptive to the identified needs in a given area. Consistent with this claim, my organisation’s leadership ensures that stakeholders realise the need for change. Such awareness makes it possible for them to be in the forefront in promoting the change that is in tandem with the vision of the organisation.
Conclusion
Competency framework for health promotion is an important structure that determines and guides the skills, knowledge, abilities, and approaches that are necessary for better health outcomes in a society. Among them, leadership, communication, and enabling change are important competencies that the framework addresses. In terms of enabling change, the framework allows the realisation of health promotion as a process towards change to better health living. This process calls for change in the existing norms and approaches to better healthcare. In terms of leadership, the structure recognises the significance of leadership in facilitating an environment where all parties have a joint vision and premeditated course towards the health promotion procedures and results. Lastly, communication plays an important role in guiding how and what information is to be dispatched to the targeted populations and stakeholders. It leads to collaborative efforts towards the final intended outcomes of the health promotion agenda.
Reference List
Bartholomew, K., Parcel, S., Kok, G., Gottlieb, H., & Fernandez, E. (2011). Planning health promotion programmes: an intervention mapping approach. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Battel-Kirk, B., Van der Zanden, G., Schipperen, M., Contu, P., Gallardo, C., Martinez, A., & Barry, M. (2012). Developing a competency-based pan-European accreditation framework for health promotion. Health Education & Behaviour, 39(6), 672-680.
Dempsey, C., Barry, M., & Battel-Kirk, B. (2011). The CompHP core competencies framework for health promotion in Europe. Web.
Englander, R., Cameron, T., Ballard, J., Dodge, J., Bull, J., & Aschenbrener, A. (2013). Toward a common taxonomy of competency domains for the health professions and competencies for physicians. Academic Medicine, 88(8), 1088-1094.
Patrick, R., Capetola, T., Townsend, M., & Nuttman, S. (2011). Health promotion and climate change: exploring the core competencies required for action. Health promotion international, 27(4), 475-85.
Street, L., Gold, R., & Manning, R. (2013). Health promotion and interactive technology: Theoretical applications and future directions. London: Routledge.