become a healthcare administrator

Are you interested in leading an organization in the healthcare industry? Are you currently in a team leader or supervisor role in the clinical setting and want to enhance your leadership skills? Are you wanting to become a healthcare administrator others admire?

The ability to lead others is both an inherited trait and a learned skilled.  Many people seem to be natural leaders, yet leading requires additional competencies and skills that may be developed through formal training and education. Being a great healthcare leader requires the ability to understand the business, inspire others, and manage and reward performance in a fair manner. 

Understanding the Business

Many leaders in healthcare are promoted from clinical roles, for example, a bedside nurse may be promoted to a team lead, then to a supervisor or manager. Yet, being any excellent bedside healthcare professional does not always prepare you for leadership or for a future role as a healthcare administrator.  Developing business acumen, or understanding the business is paramount to your success as a healthcare administrator.  Understanding the business may help you determine your healthcare entity’s performance, competition, financial, quality, and service goals.

Business knowledge and acumen may include the following concepts:

  • Basic Healthcare Administration – Healthcare is a much regulated industry and it is important for you to understand what you can and cannot do under state and U.S. government regulations. A good example of this is HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which impacts how providers manage patient privacy.
  • Financials – As an administrator, you will be responsible for understanding how your healthcare entity makes money. Depending on your organization's delivery of care, your organization may work with insurance companies, self-paying clients or both. Learning about accounting principles and practices, and healthcare payor systems and processes will help you feel confident about your leadership role and the decisions you may need to make. In addition, as healthcare continues to go through changes, understanding business financials and opportunity models such as bundled pricing and accountable care organizations will help you create and lead a team of high performing healthcare clinical and business professionals.
  • Quality and Business Process Improvement – If you are a clinician in some capacity, you may already have experience with your organization’s clinical quality improvement initiatives such as The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Guidelines.  In addition, you will learn and apply ongoing process improvement techniques in daily clinical, operations, and office practices to help your organization meet business goals and continually improve the patient and family experience, a key quality indicator in today’s competitive healthcare marketplace.

Inspiring and Leading Others

Healthcare is a people business.

As a healthcare administrator, the talent of your employees and managing that talent is key to your company’s success. Regardless of the entity size or type of care delivery, from a physician’s office, short-term outpatient facilities, acute care to various types of long-term care, your employees are the foundation and the front line of your business. Creating an engaging workplace where individuals are willing to give their very best every day to patients and family members is ultimately the responsibility of the administrator. To become a world-class administrator that others admire and want to emulate, you may need:

  • Excellent Interpersonal Skills – As a healthcare administrator, you will need to articulate a clear vision, create consensus, manage sensitive situations, and deliver good and bad news in a manner that is direct and caring.
  • Conflict Management Skills – As in other industries, conflicts do happen in the healthcare workplace. Managing differences between individuals and teams is important in ensuring your organization runs smoothly and patient care is delivered of the highest quality possible.
  • Talent Management Skills – Studies show understanding how to manage employees through effective human resources administration will help you create a positive work environment. Talent management starts with recruiting the best candidates and developing, managing performance, rewarding and recognizing and retaining your employees. You will also learn the importance of human resources processes and procedures, regulatory trends and benefits.

How Can I Become a Healthcare Administrator?

Becoming a healthcare administrator people admire takes commitment and work.  Contact us TODAY for more information about earning a Bachelor of Science in Health Science with a concentration in Healthcare Administration in as little as 2.5 years through MCI’s year-round program. It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

Learn more about ECPI's College of Health Science TODAY!

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