Becoming a Healthcare Manager

If you thought that the field of healthcare involves only direct patient care and requires extensive schooling to break into, think again! The healthcare profession depends upon the people who work behind the scenes to make sure that the business of healthcare runs efficiently. These professionals, called healthcare managers or healthcare administrators, occupy key management positions in a variety of medical facilities.

Healthcare managers perform duties ranging from budgeting and personnel management to maintaining patient records and developing organization-wide policies. These health services managers work long and hard to ensure the smooth delivery of healthcare to their patients.

Interested in becoming a healthcare manager? Read on.

Start Early

If you decide that healthcare services is your calling in life, then it can help to start preparing while you’re still in high school. Taking more intellectually rigorous courses such as science, math, English, psychology, and business will lay the educational foundation for becoming a healthcare manager.

The next step is to get a college degree, and there are a number of healthcare degree options if you want to enter the healthcare services field. You simply need to choose the academic program that meets your educational and career objectives.

While graduates can often enter the profession once they’ve completed their bachelor’s degree, and then work their way up the corporate ladder. Some entry-level positions, especially in smaller healthcare facilities, are often open to those who have an undergraduate healthcare administration degree

Since the job of a healthcare manager involves making a lot of independent and strategic decisions, the minimum required credential for a senior position is a master’s in healthcare administration or a related degree. Obviously, this degree can be acquired only after completing an undergraduate degree in a related field. Some graduate programs may also demand a year or more of work experience in clinical or administrative positions before graduation.

Get Experience

Because of increasing competition in the field, just getting a relevant college degree may not suffice when you’re hunting for a job. Hands-on industry experience while in college may give you an edge when competing for opportunities. Some academic programs may include a mandatory externship, but if the program you choose doesn’t require one, get out there and look for paid or unpaid internships at healthcare facilities near you.

Find out if your college offers cooperative education employment-such programs allow students to work in their fields of study while they pursue their degrees. Even consider volunteering at a healthcare center. Working in close proximity with doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals is extremely valuable not only professionally but personally, as you work your way towards entering the healthcare field.

Skill Development

Like any other manager, a health services manager is expected to demonstrate above-average communication, interpersonal, leadership, and problem-solving skills. The nature of this job also demands that healthcare administrators display an ability to work under pressure. While some skills required for becoming a healthcare manager can be acquired, others are inherent.

Do you have the personality traits necessary to succeed? Are you willing to work toward the right combination of education, experience, and skills? Then you have what it takes to become a health services manager.

Healthcare Marketing

Overview Of The Healthcare Industry

The healthcare industry is quite a fragmented industry with many companies falling into the medical sector and other parallel sectors.

The mood in the industry currently is busy; due mainly to the fact that the population has boomed and resources are stretched. Healthcare funding is always in short supply and due to the current economic difficulties cutbacks are common.

Competition in the healthcare sector is high, and indeed is growing as more companies spring up.

Marketing In The Healthcare Industry

The healthcare industry is very active with its marketing using a wide range of marketing tools both for new business and also brand reinforcement.

Due to the growth and development of the healthcare market, specialist marketing companies have diversified and do concentrate on healthcare marketing. Many work exclusively with healthcare companies and use this as a USP to ensure they stand out as unique. Others have healthcare clients as part of their mixed portfolio of different industries they work in.

What Sort Of Marketing Tools Do Healthcare Companies Normally Use?

The industry tends to work in a specific way and as such do make use of certain marketing tools both for drawing in new business, but also communicating news.

The healthcare sector is unique and in many ways does not operate in the same way as other industry markets (such as retail, IT, recruitment etc.) as it is not as commercial.

Websites For Healthcare Companies

Websites are a big part of marketing for healthcare companies; giving up to date information about new products, services and any industry news.

Most healthcare businesses are quite web savvy and do make use of the internet as a form of communication. Their websites are normally quite basic HTML websites but quite a few do have flash websites to showcase their products in a creative and interactive way.

Internet Marketing also plays quite a big role in the marketing portfolio of healthcare businesses which links in to paid advertising and pay per click marketing.

PR For Healthcare Businesses

PR is a very effective marketing tool for healthcare companies. Used mainly for communicating business news and product launches it ties in well with any web advertising that is being done.

Crisis PR is something that is also used by many companies, as the industry does come under public scrutiny. Whether this is for protecting share prices, corporate espionage, or even problems that may occur within the business.

Telemarketing For Healthcare Companies

Inbound telemarketing is used by some healthcare companies, but the traditional B2B outbound calling is not really used within this industry.

This ties into what was mentioned earlier in this article, that the industry is not as commercial as other sectors that are more aggressive when it comes to their marketing and advertising.

Choosing A Marketing Company

Finding a marketing company that has healthcare marketing experience can be tricky due to the sheer number of marketing agencies around the UK. Something that could be time consuming both in terms of researching and selecting suitable agencies, but also in communicating with them.

Using a price comparison site can help save valuable time both in hunting down marketing companies with relevant industry experience; but also could save money in comparing costs – something that all businesses currently are looking for.