Experts are revolutionizing the way medical services function at the intersection of business and healthcare.
The healthcare system is trying to keep up with the aging of the baby boomer generation and their longer life span. The effectiveness of healthcare systems depends on the people who work behind the scenes to ensure quality care. The need for skilled professionals who can manage complex business procedures is growing along with the healthcare industry’s expansion.
Today’s medical facilities, research centers, and public health initiatives depend heavily on the effective and seamless operation of healthcare management. Because of this, jobs that combine expertise in business and medicine are proliferating.
Miranda Wong, a fourth-year student studying healthcare analytics and co-president of the University of Ottawa’s Business Healthcare Society (BHS), spoke to the Fulcrum about her perspectives on important positions within healthcare management. In order to improve system efficiency, Wong highlights the significance of creating a balance between business and healthcare.
The adoption of business concepts in healthcare has resulted in increased cost management and patient outcomes. Healthcare firms, for example, commonly use business models such as Lean or Six Sigma to minimize waste and guarantee that resources are used efficiently. “Gathering data and then applying some statistical techniques to group the data and come up with a summary, and then use that for improving policies or disease prevention,” describes Wong..
The salary of a hospital administrator is typically around $120,000. Hospital administrators are crucial to the provision and operation of medical services at a hospital. They’re responsible for day to day operations of a hospital, which includes personnel management, financial management, and making sure the hospital complies with all legal obligations.
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a hospital is in charge of ensuring that a hospital or hospital system performs as cost-effectively as possible, with salaries ranging from $180,000 to $250,000.
A Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a healthcare organization, with salaries between $160,000 and $220,000 is a growing role due to the IT issues that hospitals and other health organizations face. Rather than merely providing software and technical assistance, the CIO must also provide strategic business leadership and oversee the collection, management, safety, and privacy of patient health records. Employing a CIO who is knowledgeable about IT security is vital given the ever-present concerns of cyber attacks and patient data breaches. They must also be accountable for creating and implementing information systems architecture.
Healthcare consultants, much like business consultants, help firms improve their procedures, increase profits, and reduce expenses. Healthcare consultants, as opposed to business consultants, operate in healthcare environments such as hospitals, private practices, doctors’ offices, and rehabilitation clinics. Organizations seek help from healthcare consultants when they have a problem to solve or need to make improvements within the firm. The consultant who earns generally around $120,000 may study data and research potential problems in order to suggest solutions.
Miranda Wong discussed her opinions on different roles when asked to discuss an important career in healthcare management. “Healthcare consulting, because that, I think that’s very relevant with startups and it’s very healthcare and business related,” she said. Wong pointed out the need of statisticians and optimization specialists in streamlining healthcare processes and predicting patient care needs. “In the healthcare industry, efficiencies need to be prioritized to, for example, limit wait times at hospitals and get equipment and material to the final destination the fastest,” Wong mentioned.
Healthcare management entails a variety of important abilities required for healthcare workers to efficiently oversee medical, nursing, or public health resources while also achieving goals intended for improving population health and healthcare systems. These skills include planning, organizing, implementing, and monitoring and evaluating (M&E).
“Statisticians, the ones that record public determinants of health data, because this data is put on, for example, Health Canada, and it can be used for forecasting,” Wong explained. She also explained how the use of data can help improve healthcare delivery, drawing on her personal knowledge with analytics courses such as ADM4363 Business Optimization Analytics at the U of O.
While pursuing a degree in healthcare analytics, Wong reiterated the need of learning technical skills. “Employers wanted me to have lots of experience in coding languages like Python, which I don’t have right now,” Wong said, reflecting on her experience with healthcare-related projects and her ambitions for furthering her career.
As Wong’s experience indicates, healthcare management provides a number of professional opportunities. She touched on how her experience as co-president of BHS influenced her career objectives by offering imperative networking and leadership opportunities.
“As long as you get experience doing something, it is relevant. Job opportunities are very slim, so I kind of just had to take what I could get,” Wong advised those interested in entering the field.
