Postgraduate programs in healthcare administration are popular for experienced students that wish to work behind the scenes in medical settings. As you might expect, there is a huge diversity to the kind of role that a graduate might find after they complete a healthcare administration courses.
Here are some of the paths they can choose to take.
Hospital Administrator
The job market for health admins is very diverse, but many graduates choose to enter the field as hospital administrators before taking on more specialist roles in other healthcare environments.
Hospital administrators act as the non-medical managers of specific wards, surgeries, or floors within a hospital. They oversee everything from the provision of food to the supply chain of medicines and medical equipment. Medical staff report to them when they need to raise administrative issues. Hospital administrator roles are a good way of entering into the healthcare administration world.
Hospital Director
Hospital directors are essentially hospital administrators with a far broader range of responsibilities, as executive members of the hospital board that take on a great deal of the responsibility for the safe and efficient running of a hospital. They direct administrators and consult with advocacy groups. This role is extremely senior and is the end of a career path that begins with basic hospital administration work.
Nursing Home Director
Nursing home directors often hold healthcare administration degrees in addition to medical qualifications. They deal with the strategic management and planning behind nursing home operations. These operations can be immensely complex and involve large and poorly funded staffing structures.
Nursing home directors have challenging roles, but their behind-the-scenes work can help improve many people’s lives.
Public Health Official
Public health is a field dedicated to the prevention of disease through education, vaccination, and healthcare provision. It first emerged as a hugely important part of healthcare during the 1918 influenza epidemic, and its importance is all the more obvious during the COVID-19 epidemic that we currently have on our hands. Healthcare administration graduates have a good knowledge base for progression into the field of public health.
Administrative, social, and educational planning on a strategic level is essential for good public health management. Public health officials may find themselves advising hospital boards, government agencies, or large corporations.
Health Information Manager
Health information managers are responsible for the administration of the informational services that keep a hospital or medical system running efficiently. Like many other fields, healthcare is increasingly reliant upon the responsible and innovative use of large datasets in order to serve patients and customers.
The data held by hospitals is extremely sensitive – and wholly invaluable to medical staff and public health planners.
Health information managers need to work closely with cyber security experts, database administrators, and IT teams in order to ensure the safe and efficient management of information. Breaches in healthcare information security have been fairly common in recent years, and large attacks like the WannaCry event damaged public perception of healthcare data security.
Cover photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels
