The health care sector in India has emerged as one of the hottest career options. Besides regular health care professionals like doctors, nurses and other staff, administrative and management section play a key role in the functioning of a hospital.
To work as a hospital administrative professional, the candidate is now required to possess a degree in hospital management.
The degree in hospital management makes an individual eligible to look after the administration and management of hospitals and other health care systems.
As we all know that the nature of such jobs is to be quick and efficient enough to ensure the smooth functioning of the hospitals. This has increased the importance of hospital management courses not only in India, but all over the world. Course in hospital management helps the students to fetch good remuneration packages.
The courses in hospital management have been created to:
- Identify the most common administrative problems in the health care industry.
- Find solutions using cutting-edge management techniques.
- Develop educational materials for issuing them.
Eligibility
To pursue such courses in hospital management, the candidate must have cleared his/her 10+2 or equivalent with biology as a subject for the undergraduate degree. Most of the institutes offering courses in hospital management conduct their own entrance tests to select the best candidates. The entrance examination checks the general awareness and management skills of the candidates and is purely non-academic.
A number of institutes also offer short term, certification and diploma courses in hospital management & administration as well as clinical research through distance learning. Best medical colleges in India such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Armed forces medical College, Pune, etc., offer courses in hospital management.
Future prospects
The requirement of healthcare professionals in India is increasing at a very rapid pace and around 2 lakh health care institutes look for such professionals who can facilitate the functioning of the centers. This explains the demand for hospital management and administration courses in India. Not only in the private sector, but the need for the hospital management professionals is rising in the government sector also. The government hospitals are now competing with the private hospital to offer the excellent health care services and thus require qualified individuals to look after the processes.
Career Options
Those holding a degree or diploma in hospital management or administration are eligible to look for jobs in both public / private sector hospitals, clinics, national & international healthcare organizations, NGOs, health insurance sector, public health departments, rehabilitation centers, to name a few. A hospital manager also administers, manages and maintains the medical equipments and takes care of medical staff management and their day to day medical activities. Some other tasks of hospital managers include financial planning and operations of the health care system where they are working.
The functioning and responsibility of a hospital manager completely depends on the organization’s size and the number of individuals working there. In the smaller organizations, a single person is usually given all types of responsibilities such as billing, maintenance, equipment supply, etc. The person has to keep in touch with the doctors and participate in the decision making. However, in the larger organizations, there are teams and every task is assigned individually. The hospital managers have to remain in active contacts with other departments to facilitate smooth functioning.
