What Competencies Matter Most to Improve Hospitals’ Performance in the Value-Based Purchasing Environment?

Abstract

The Hospital Value-based Purchasing program is a financial incentive program for U.S. acute-care hospitals. Its unique challenges call for hospital executives to possess unique leadership competencies. In this national, cross-sectional qualitative study, primary demographic, and textual data were collected using a self-developed survey instrument and analyzed using Minitab and MAXQDA. Final sample size was n = 190. Three major findings emerged. First, executive leadership competencies were perceived to impact U.S. acute-care hospitals’ Value-based Purchasing (HVBP) organizational performance. Second, the top five executive leadership competencies that mattered most to these HVBP organizational performance were: organizational awareness, collaboration, team leadership, human resource management, and information and technology management. Finally, U.S. acute-care hospitals’ executive leaders recognized managing the HVBP program’s specific challenges and thus urged to provide executive leadership competency development programs.