These lines from the Rigveda reflect the philosophy of Administrative Staff College of India and the inspiration that guides the Post-Graduate Diploma in Hospital Management (PGDHM) programme of the College. The PGDHM programme of ASCI, approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), is the preferred higher-education option for a large section of graduates aspiring to become professionals in hospital administration and healthcare management. The programme attracts a large number of recruiters too during the annual placements season. Alumni of the ASCI-PGDHM programme are today in responsible positions in several corporate hospitals as well as in the industry in India and abroad, competently handling healthcare service delivery management.
IAS (Rtd), Chairman ASCI - Court of Governors
Padma Bhushan Awardee
Former Home Secretary, Government of India
Vice-Chairman,Court of Governors ASCI
Former Chairman & CEO, Unilever – Peru
Director General (I/C), ASCI
MBA, PhD (Business Management)
Administrative Staff College of India (http://www.asci.org.in) was established in 1956 at the joint initiative of both the Government of India (GoI) and the industry, as an autonomous, self-supporting, public-purpose institution, with the objectives of being a think tank for policy inputs and to build the capacities of practicing professionals in the management of government and business enterprises.
At the apex of its governance structure is a policy-setting, oversight body, the Court of Governors (CoG). It is a virtual who’s who of eminent professionals, public figures and industry leaders who have distinguished themselves in their respective areas of specialization in education, enterprise, administration, management, governance etc. spanning a wide variety of fields and disciplines.
The chairmen of the Court of Governors since inception are: (i) Mr. John Mathai, former Union Finance Minister; (ii) Mr. C.D. Deshmukh, former Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and former Union Finance Minister; (iii) Mr. Dharma Vira, former Cabinet Secretary to the GoI; (iv) Mr. M. Narasimham, former Governor of RBI, Finance Secretary to the GoI and Executive Director at the World Bank and IMF, Vice-President at ADB; (v) Dr. Abid Hussain, former Member of Planning Commission and Ambassador to the USA.
The present chairman of the Court of Governors Sri K Padmanabhaiah, IAS (Retd) is an administrator par excellence and has been the former Home Secretary for the Government of India. His tenure as an administrator is dotted with many remarkable achievements. In 2008, he was awarded ‘Padma Bhushan’ by the President of India for outstanding contributions to the Nation in the field of Civil Service.
ASCI is the first and foremost institution for practising managers in India. It conducts about 200 Management Development Programmes (MDPs) per year, on a variety of functional management areas, theme-specific domains and sectoral disciplines. About 4,000 participants benefit from these programmes every year. As on date, more than 115,000 civil servants, managers and executives have been trained by the College.
Similarly, ASCI is the chosen advisory and research destination for about 100 international and national organizations, year after year. The management development, training, research and project activities of ASCI are carried out by a strong team of about forty faculty members who constitute the following eight Centres of Excellence:
The management development programmes of ASCI cover key disciplines and sectoral areas such as healthcare management, general management, human resources, finance, marketing, operations, information technology, human development, energy, transport, banking, health, gender and education.
The healthcare industry is growing at a fast pace in India. However, the industry faces severe challenges in terms of scarcity of trained manpower. There are thus manpower capacity gaps for efficiently and effectively addressing the hospital administration and healthcare management needs. Also, there are increasing requirements of the healthcare sector for policy inputs, management advice, capacity building as well as research and impact evaluation studies. It is with a view to meeting this growing demand of specialized needs that the College set up the Centre for Healthcare Management (CHM) in 1998. The PGDHM programme is anchored in the CHM. The Centre thus contributes actively to teaching, training as well as management and research studies in the healthcare domain. The College applied for and received approval of the AICTE in 2005, for the PGDHM programme.
The strengths of the Centre are:
The management development programmes of ASCI cover key disciplines and sectoral areas such as healthcare management, general management, human resources, finance, marketing, operations, information technology, human development, energy, transport, banking, health, gender and education.
The programme has academic rigor and industry-orientation. It includes specially designed modules on healthcare information technology, hospital operations, personality development, and such other modules that are crucial for the students for advancing their knowledge frontiers as well as securing placements in the best hospitals, IT enterprises, consultancy firms as well as private corporations and public organizations engaged in healthcare management. The Programme has the following distinguishing features: