The healthcare industry is one of the most significant sectors in the US, with a National expenditure of around $4.1 trillion in 2020. This is because the medical services industry comprises many jobs which are not limited to a nurse or a doctor. There are also several positions in the administrative and management side of the healthcare sector. If you have a deep interest in joining this growing industry, you can easily find a spot for yourself. According to the BLS, professions within healthcare are growing at a steady rate of 30% till the next decade.
Working With A Graduate Level Degree
A Master’s in Healthcare Administration (MHA) allows you to apply for more senior positions within the sector. You get a chance to demonstrate your leadership capabilities and have the core skills needed for healthcare policy, business expertise, marketing strategies, and taking on administrative roles. In the past, an entrance test like a GRE was necessary before enrolling for an MHA degree. However, now, you can easily find online MHA programs no GRE and advance your education with the core traits that allow you to choose your profession. While you can start most of these careers after you get your bachelor’s, you should top it up with a master’s:
1) Chief Nursing Officer
A chief nursing officer has a pivotal role in maintaining clinical harmony and ensuring patients receive the best optimal care. Your job is on the executive side of the nursing sector, so instead of working with patients directly, you will delegate nurses and monitor the care they provide. Therefore, you need to have a clear understanding of patient policies and nursing procedures and keep up with the demands of your staff.
At the same time, you need to implement new strategies, such as what technological advancement you need to implement that will streamline the workload. You may also need to hire new staff and review their experience to ensure that they’re suitable for looking after patients. Apart from working in the hospital, you can also exercise your skills in the public health sector and work on creating new healthcare policies.
2) Healthcare Manager
The healthcare sector is a business, and like any business, it needs a manager to ensure work flows smoothly and every employee knows what they have to do. Whether you’re instructing nurses, speaking with medical billers, or setting up new hospital policies, your job is necessary to keep the healthcare industry in one piece.
Therefore, you need to be good at designing and sorting out a budget that doesn’t drain the institute you’re working for financially. By arranging training workshops, you can pave a path for your medical staff to upgrade their skills, build their knowledge and get a chance to network, which will reflect perfectly on the hospital. Be sure to cultivate a culture of tolerance and ensure that healthcare workers practice with utmost sensitivity when working with patients and inform them of the proper code of conduct.
There may be times when you have to showcase your business skills and take the initiative to foster relationships with other healthcare sectors such as pharmaceuticals and even NGOs to encourage collaboration so that more healthcare outcomes get achieved.
3) Director Of Patient Safety
Medical errors are the third leading cause of patient death after heart disease and cancer in the US. These medical mishaps include a misdiagnosis, administering the wrong medication, and performing an incorrect surgical procedure. Losing a patient is painful for both you and the grieving family. It also reflects poorly on your hospital’s reputation, with lawsuits tarnishing the healthcare institute’s records. This is why patients must get treated fairly, ethically, and adequately when they come to your hospital.
As a director of patient safety, you need to work on devising healthcare policies that champion patient rights. These include making the admission process more accessible, creating downloadable forms available in multiple languages, and upholding hygiene standards. You should ensure that the surgical and medical apparatus is sterilized and appropriately discarded and monitor the disposal process. The healthcare staff should know all federal and safety regulations about patient safety. Don’t forget to communicate with your medical workers on the clinical outcomes you expect, including incident reports. Infections can break out at any time, especially within hospitals.
Therefore, you need an emergency strategy to curb the illness before it spreads. For example, if a patient with the Ebola virus enters the ER, make sure you clear the space, shift patients to other wards and immediately quarantine the infected patient. The medical staff should receive the proper training to suit up and treat the condition without letting the virus spread outside of the quarantine zone. By assigning codes to different emergencies, you can prevent a major catastrophe.
4) Government Healthcare Consultant
Community wellness is also a part of the healthcare sector. You don’t have to limit your skills and expertise to hospitals. Instead, extend it to the population. By joining the government as a healthcare consultant, you can set policies, strategies, and rules for the community to follow to ensure their well-being. You may also dispatch public health teams to take care of communities suffering because of inadequate care, lack of education, and access to resources.
You can even contact local doctors and follow the HIPAA guidelines to use patient information for public disclosure. For instance, during the pandemic, the government was dependent on patient data in real-time to update the public about the virus due to insufficient data. You can set some policies, including setting vaccine standards, encouraging cancer screenings, and laws against drug abuse.
5) Health Information Manager
Working as a health information manager, you’ll be directly responsible for looking after patients’ data. You’ll extract the information from admission forms’ electronic health charts, and if you get any corresponding notes from the doctor, enter them into the database. This includes all relevant details to a patient’s well-being, such as their medical history, current, and past diagnosis, and treatment options.
Getting a healthcare degree online can open the door to many executive and administrative positions. Ensuring patients stay protected is also a priority for any successful healthcare enterprise, and by becoming a director of patient safety, you can lend your expertise in doing just that. Working in the government also has excellent prospects for you. By becoming a health consultant and joining any government agency, you take care of communities instead of focusing on selective patients.
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