There is an ever increasing need gor changes in Japanese health care delivery system. Well-prepared nursing administrators are needed to facilitate such change. In 1993, JNA established continuing education programs for nursing administration. In Japan, continuing education programs have taken the major responsibility for developing nursing administration education programs. However, systematic nursing administration education programs must also became part of degree granting programs.

This is the first report from an ongoing project designed to develop nursing administration curriculum that will be integrated and move in a systematic way from basic education through doctoral study including continuing education.

In 1996, a convenience sample of 41 programs was generated to representing nursing administration programs (basic, graduate and continuing education) across Japan. The purpose of this study was to identify the contents of nursing administrations education programs. We did this by comparing the content in 41 sample programs with Wagner's categories for nursing administration content (consumer, environment, nursing, organization and others). Across all categories we found 54 middle range categories and 379 items. We found almost no content on marketing in the consumer categories or finances in the organizational categories.