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Hospitals consume the largest share of government health resources, yet, until recently, they have not been a focus of health policy and research in developing countries, where the resources are in negative proportion to the demands placed on services of health care institutions, and where the possibility of resources being increased in the short run is very remote, the only hope for the increase in the effectiveness of the health care system being the effective management of hospitals. A professional administrator with multidisciplinary training would ensure the optimal use of resources. We live in the age of perfection at all levels. Hence, professional training is the basic requirement for the personnel to function effectively in a hospital. Professional training is required to be imparted by the institutions specialised in professional training. Professional management has an immense scope and a bright future market on account of the increasing demand for specialised and quality health care. Better management or lack of it will determine the future of health service. This paper focuses on development of management and the requirement for professional administrators in India.

The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office has emphasized health system strengthening among the top five strategic priorities. One of the integral elements of health systems are the hospitals. The purpose of this paper is to review the need for formalized training in hospital management to improve the quality of care.

Literature review and hands on experience of conducting a regional training in hospital management for Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) countries.

Majority of patients in EMR bypass Primary Health Care facilities due to inadequate quality of services and prefer seeking specialized care at a tertiary level. There is mounting evidence of mediocre to poor patient satisfaction due to inefficient health care practices in hospitals of EMR. Strengthening the management capacity of the hospitals through a formal training programme is therefore necessary for improving the performance of health care delivery and the overall health system. Hospital management encompasses hospital planning and operational activities including development and implementation of organizational strategies to ensure adequate numbers and quality of trained human resources and effective financial management, disaster management, health management information system utilization, support services, biomedical engineering, transport and waste management. Such training will prepare health care professionals with leadership skills to deliver quality hospital services.

This is one of the first papers emphasizing the need for a formal structured regional training in hospital management for the countries of EMR. A modular incremental training approach developing an EMR Credit Transfer and Accumulation system is proposed.

Analyses the way hospital organisation models handle the relationship between medical specialists and hospital management. All models that have been developed during the last ten years seek to integrate the medical specialists in the hospital organisation by formally subordinating them to the hospital management. However, recently a new model has come to the fore ‐ the “co‐makership” ‐ in which the hospital management and the medical specialists are assigned a position alongside each other.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the medical waste management practices of a hospital in Southern Africa.

A case study methodology was utilised.

The results revealed that the hospital does not quantify medical waste. Segregation of medical waste into infectious waste and non‐infectious waste is not conducted according to definite rules and standards. Separation of medical waste and municipal waste is however practiced to a satisfactory extent. Wheeled trolleys are used for on‐site transportation of waste. Off‐site transportation of waste is outsourced to a private firm. Incineration is used in the final disposal of infectious waste. Non‐infectious waste is disposed using land disposal method. There is no policy and plan in place for managing medical waste. A number of problems were identified with respect to medical waste management.

The paper gives recommendations with the aim of improving medical waste management in hospitals.

In this paper, the authors examine the strategies used to reduce labour costs in three public hospitals in South Africa, which were effective and why. In the democratic era, after the revelations of large-scale corruption, the authors ask whether their case studies provide lessons for how public service institutions might re-make themselves, under circumstances of austerity.

A comparative qualitative case study approach, collecting data using a combination of interviews with managers, focus group discussions and interviews with shop stewards and staff was used.

Management in two hospitals relied on their financial power, divisions between unions and employees' loyalty. They lacked the insight to manage different actors, and their efforts to outsource services and draw on the Extended Public Works Program failed. They failed to support staff when working beyond their scope of practice, reducing employees' willingness to take on extra responsibilities. In the remaining hospital, while previous management had been removed due to protests by the unions, the new CEO provided stability and union–management relations were collaborative. Her legitimate power enabled unions and management to agree on appropriate cost cutting strategies.

Finding an appropriate balance between the new reality of reduced financial resources and the needs of staff and patients, requires competent unions and management, transparency and trust to develop legitimate power; managing in an authoritarian manner, without legitimate power, reduces organisational capacity. Ensuring a fair and orderly process to replace ineffective management is key, while South Africa grows cohorts of competent managers and builds managerial experience.

Quality management is high on the reform agenda of both universities and hospitals. This paper studies how quality management is implemented: who is responsible for QM and which instruments are used? The guiding research question is whether these two very distinct professional organizations respond in similar or different ways to a common reform trend. To analyze the extent of isomorphic tendencies a cross-sectoral, descriptive data analysis with data from 135 hospitals and 83 universities in Germany has been conducted. The results show that QM in hospitals is more elaborated in terms of quality instruments and at the same time more standardized. Universities, in contrast, follow quite individualistic ways to organize quality management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of best management practices in an Australian state-run healthcare system, namely New South Wales (NSW), and studies the impact of a range of hospital factors in driving best management practices as a means of enhancing healthcare delivery.

This study adapts a unique survey instrument globally tested to quantify the multi-dimensional nature of hospital management practices in 42 acute care public hospitals of NSW. The authors then analysed the role of hospital-specific characteristics in driving best management practices, namely hospital size (measured by the number of hospital beds, employees and doctors), level of skill and education, degree of hospital manager autonomy and organisational hierarchy.

The findings of this study show the areas of strength and potential areas of improvement in NSW hospitals. The authors find a positive association between the adoption of better management practices and hospital size (measured by the number of hospital beds and employees), level of skills and education, degree of hospital manager autonomy and organisational hierarchy. However, hospital size as measured by the number of doctors did not have a statistically significant relationship.

This paper is of interest to both hospital administrators, clinical doctors and healthcare policy-makers who want to improve and develop strategies for better management in the healthcare sector.

This study provides an internationally comparable robust measure of management capability in public hospitals, and contributes to the evidence-base of management practices and performance in hospitals.

The purpose of this paper is to give a comprehensive and updated analysis of the available academic literature (2000–2016) on management and reforms in the Nordic hospital landscape.

A systematic literature review was conducted by searching articles in Scopus database, as well as applicable journals.

The vast majority of the Nordic articles are relatively coherent on the following: first, the reforms have created a change in the manager role or rather there are new expectations about the content of the manager role. Second, the reforms entail tension between profession and administration. Doctors who are managers identify themselves primarily as doctors, implicating that the medical logic has not competed out by an administrative logic. Third, the reforms have brought new opportunities for nurses. Still, nurse managers perceive tension between the profession and administration. Fourth, new public management (NPM) is often the framework or background for understanding change in hospitals or manager roles in the articles. Fifth, the majority of the articles are focusing on management as a general key concept.

The search was limited to the period 2000–2016 and have only included articles published in English. There are several limitations around these choices: first, research published in a language other than English (i.e. Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish or Danish) are excluded. Second, it may take years before consequences of hospital reforms have impact on management and manager roles. Some of the articles are published relatively shortly after the implementation of the reform. Third, many factors in a reform have impact on management or manager roles, thus it is challenging to give simple explanations.

The authors would welcome a more pluralistic approach, and contributions that are not quite so busy describing and criticizing the NPMization of hospitals and management. In particular, the authors look forward to more research on how other reform trends, such as NPG, affect management in hospitals.

This review summarizes the literature on how academic literature (2000–2016) – in a Nordic reform context – has dealt with management in hospitals. The study reflects upon the academic literature per se. There are tendencies to explore reforms and management with some conceptual equivalence.

There is increasing recognition amongst healthcare providers on the necessity to improve fire safety management in healthcare facilities. This is possibly not yet satisfactory because of recent fire incidents in Asia. This paper set out to analyse the literature because of the paucity of systematic reviews on fire safety management of public healthcare facilities and proffer preventive measures.

Thirty related studies were identified with the support of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses via Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Influencing factors, hindrances to fire safety management and preventive measures for fire-related occurrence in Asian hospital buildings were the three themes that emerged from the reviewed. The factors that influence fire in Asian hospital buildings were categorised into technical, management and legislation factors.

The recommendations of this paper were based on literature that was systematically reviewed but does not compromise the robustness concerning fire safety management in hospital buildings across Asian countries. Much is needed to be known regarding fire safety in healthcare buildings across Asian countries. This paper recommended exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach as part of the implications for further studies. This will allow in-depth face-to-face interviews and increase the generalisability of future findings concerning fire safety management in hospital buildings across Asian countries to a larger population.

As part of the practical implications, this paper recommends fire safety management plan as one of the practical possible measures for addressing technical, management and legislation factors. Also recommended is training and fire safety education of healthcare staff in collaboration with safety firefighters to address major issues that may arise from management factors. The government should upgrade the safety technology equipment in healthcare facilities as part of measures to mitigate issues concerning technical and legislation factors. Also, the identified factors are part of the theoretical contributions to the advancement of knowledge and this brings to the front burners new opening.

This is probably the first systematic review paper on fire safety hospital buildings in Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance and records management in private and public hospitals in Ghana, with the aim of finding out how the effective and efficient management of a hospital's records can facilitate its governance obligations, which includes but not limited to accountability, transparency and information security.

The study was informed by the triangulation of the Stakeholders' and Records Continuum Theories. Data used for analysis were drawn from 90 respondents from four hospitals with the use of questionnaires and personal observations. A total of 82 questionaries' were returned in their complete forms and used for the analysis. Linear regressions were performed to establish the relationship between corporate governance and records management.

The key finding of the study was that, the hospitals generated different types of records in the course of their business activities but existing records management standards, practices and systems were inadequate and undermined the contribution records could make in support of the governance function in the hospitals. Results of a linear regression also revealed that positive and significant relationships exist between corporate governance and records management. Furthermore, all variables used as predictors of corporate governance had positive and significant relationships with records management except information security.

Participants were from four hospitals in only one Region in Ghana, and as such the results could not be generalised to the whole country.

The study has established the recognition of the essential but often ignored conditions necessary for an effective and efficient governance system for hospitals.

The study has demonstrated that the effective management of hospital records is a critical factor in providing capacity for hospitals' efficiency, accountability, transparency, information security and indeed good governance. This research has also contributed towards bridging the theoretical gap identified in the study.