Scope of Healthcare Management

This is an exciting time for healthcare management. Healthcare is changing more rapidly than almost any other field. The field is changing in terms of how and where care is delivered, who is providing those services, and how that care is financed. Healthcare management requires talented people to manage the changes taking place. In their roles, healthcare executives have an opportunity to make a significant contribution to improving the health of the communities their organizations serve.

With growing diversity in the healthcare system, executives are needed in many settings, including:

• Clinics
• Consulting firms
• Health insurance organizations
• Healthcare associations
• Hospitals
• Nursing homes
• Physician practices
• Mental health organizations
• Public health departments
• Rehabilitation centers
• Skilled nursing facilities
• Universities and research institutions

Today, an estimated 100,000 people occupy health management positions at numerous organizational levels, from department head to chief executive officer. Requirements for senior-level positions in healthcare organizations are demanding, but these jobs also offer opportunities to improve the system of care giving.

If you choose a career in healthcare management, your first job might be an entry- to mid-level management position in a specialized area, such as:

• Finance
• Government relations
• Human resources
• Information systems
• Marketing and public affairs
• Material management (purchasing of equipment and supplies)
• Medical staff relations
• Nursing administration
• Patient care services
• Planning and development
  
  Source/Reference:  http://www.healthmanagementcareers.org/careers.cfm

Health Opportunities

With the healthcare industry witnessing remarkable growth in the last few years, the concept of healthcare has gone beyond hospitals. Instead, it is now related to a gamut of quality services linked to hospitals. This in turn has increased the demand for quality healthcare professionals in India.

Today, healthcare is the third largest service sector — at US $35 billion — in India and is expected to reach US $75 billion in the next five years. Of all the hospital expansions in the near future, the private sector will account for 80% of this spending.

A major challenge for the Indian healthcare industry would be not only to retain the healthcare workforce but to develop an environment that would encourage the NRIs to come back. Even if the number of doctors were to increase from 0.6 to 0.8 per 1,000 and the number of nurses were to increase from 1.5 to 2 per 1,000 to match with international standards, India still would need 2,00,000 doctors and 5,00,000 nurses besides another 2,00,000 healthcare management personnel.

Health care organizations are now realizing that they need MBAs running their organizations as opposed to clinicians. That leaves the industry, in India and abroad, facing a huge hiring opportunity. In response to this, recruiters and university administrators have reported that a constantly growing pool of students and graduate MBAs are now interested in pursuing careers in health care services, biotech firms, and pharmaceutical companies.

Because the competition is poised to increase in terms of quality and quantity with time, there is a demand to acquire the requisite skill sets in clinical, scientific, or health care systems knowledge to stand out. A good school needs to prep students with courses like biomedical marketing, e-health business models, and health care economics and finance, which because of the multi-payer system is strikingly different from finance in other fields. This experience allows graduates to step into product development, product marketing, supply-chain analysis, and senior management roles.

This creates the need for a specialised course in healthcare and MBA in healthcare management is the answer to this need.

Source: MBA in Healthcare Management

Careers in Healthcare Management

This is an exciting time for healthcare management. Healthcare is changing more rapidly than almost any other field. The field is changing in terms of how and where care is delivered, who is providing those services, and how that care is financed. Healthcare management requires talented people to manage the changes taking place. In their roles, healthcare executives have an opportunity to make a significant contribution to improving the health of the communities their organizations serve.

With growing diversity in the healthcare system, executives are needed in many settings, including:

• Clinics
• Consulting firms
• Health insurance organizations
• Healthcare associations
• Hospitals
• Nursing homes
• Physician practices
• Mental health organizations
• Public health departments
• Rehabilitation centers
• Skilled nursing facilities
• Universities and research institutions

Today, an estimated 100,000 people occupy health management positions at numerous organizational levels, from department head to chief executive officer. Requirements for senior-level positions in healthcare organizations are demanding, but these jobs also offer opportunities to improve the system of care giving.

If you choose a career in healthcare management, your first job might be an entry- to mid-level management position in a specialized area, such as:

• Finance
• Government relations
• Human resources
• Information systems
• Marketing and public affairs
• Material management (purchasing of equipment and supplies)
• Medical staff relations
• Nursing administration
• Patient care services
• Planning and development
  
  Source:  Careers in Healthcare Management: Types of Careers

A Pool of B-Schools

This is in continuation to my previous post. (Click here to read the previous one)

…

Now that the entrance exams of many business schools have already completed and admission processes have started for this year, it’s high time to know some of the B-schools in India available for the dental graduates to prepare for the next year (2013). The following is the list of some of the institutes of India that I know.

Colleges for MBA in Healthcare Management (Full Time)

IIHMR, Bangalore

IIHMR, Delhi

IIHMR, Jaipur

IMS, Indore

KEM, Pune

SIHS, Pune

TISS, Mumbai and few others

Colleges for MBA in Hospital Administration (Full Time)

Apollo, Hyderabad

Balaji, Chennai

Birla, Jharkhand

Kasturba, Manipal

NIMS, Hyderabad

SIHS, Pune

TISS, Mumbai, and few others

Colleges for MBA in Healthcare and/or Hospital Management (Part Time)

AIIMS, Delhi

Apollo, Hyderabad

Asian Institute of Health Sciences, Mumbai (2 Years)

Faculty of management Studies, Delhi (3 Years)

Welingkar, Mumbai (9 Months), and many more

Colleges for MBA in Pharmaceutical Management

IES Management College and Research Centre

IIHMR Jaipur

IIMR Pharma Business School, Delhi

MIMA, Pune

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai

NIPER, Mohali

SIES, Mumbai

University Institute of Applied Management Sciences, Chandigarh, and many more

As for plane MBA, there are numerous AICTE approved and other B-schools in India. It becomes difficult to figure out which institute to join. There are numerous ranking systems available to select the best ones in India, but the aspirants are advised to consider any one ranking system as checking many rankings would lead to unnecessary confusion.

The aspirants are also advised to visit individual websites of interested institutes to know the admission process and go accordingly. The application processes for entrance exams would normally start by August every year.

As for the entrance examinations, the candidates would be tested on the verbal and mathematical ability in a typical MBA entrance exam. However there are some institutes which prefer to also include GK to test the General awareness of the candidate. The mathematical ability includes logical questions and in-depth quantitative questions and depending on institute’s preference, weightages would be decided between different components. Most of the healthcare related institutes prefer to concentrate on simple logical mathematical questions and moreover, high weightage would be given to verbal ability, reading comprehension and general awareness.

Disclaimer: This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own, based on research in real life and online portals. The schools mentioned above are alphabetically arranged and are not according to any rankings. There is no ranking system available presently for healthcare related colleges. The institutes with bolded names are some of the institutes which I consider to be good based on my research.

Dr. Kishor Chindam

BDS, MGM Dental College, Navi Mumbai

PGP-I, Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli (IIM Trichy)

An Insight into a Different World

    As the world becomes complex & competitive to live in, it becomes very important to make right decisions at right time. The time would certainly knock the door after completing graduation in dentistry, and the young graduates would be in immense pressure thinking as to how to shape up their career. It becomes important not only to succeed in life but to satisfy the needs of the society, being its respectable health servants.

     Some doctors might opt for private dental practise to start serving people immediately whereas some plan to continue their education, as to enhance their skills in a specific department. For those who want to continue their education further after graduation, you have options in the form of post-graduation courses in dentistry which can be categorized as diploma courses and master’s courses (MDS). This is a general perception, many dentists have and it is a known fact that very few people think beyond that. The time has certainly come to analyse and evaluate the different options that as a normal graduate you can pursue for the betterment of the field you have studied for past few years. Some of these courses include post-graduation in management (MBA), civil services and few other public sector courses. As a graduate from a respectable profession, you can also think of doing masters of public health in different branches and diploma courses in medical fields related to dentistry.

    As a postgraduate in management, from a prestigious brand of B-school in India, I am keener to share some of the management options available for you. There is a saying that every sector or every profession require managers to effectively make use of available resources and make some profits. Being a dentist, earning money look very easy, but when it comes to increasing the profits after tallying the balance sheet, people find it difficult. I have seen many doctors starting multiple dental clinics after some initial successes, but when it comes to managing, they tend to give up and keep their clinics up for sale. It’s just that doing an MBA enable, you to understand the business problems at the highest level. Besides, with the current opportunities in healthcare management in our country, an MBA seems to be the way forward.

    For a dental graduate, the options in management studies include Hospital Administration, Health Administration, Pharmaceutical Management and plane MBA specializing in general fields like Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Operations or Systems. It can be pursued as a full time course or part time course and the duration of course depends on institute you are choosing for. There are some institutes which complete the course in 9 months and there are some which take around 5 years. But the most common duration which many institutes across India offer is 2 years. Some institutes offer part time courses conducting lectures in the weekends solely targeting the working professionals.

    As the name suggests MBA in hospital management teaches the hospital administration to the peak as it includes the subjects related to different departments of a hospital, whereas MBA in health management enables you to understand the grass root level of healthcare system in India, most part of which include health insurance and healthcare consultancy courses. There are some colleges in India which provide both this courses in a single diploma as MBA in health and hospital management. Moreover, as you may be aware of, healthcare sector in India is in a high growth state and one of the reasons is increasing opportunities in pharma sector which is attracting many foreign players to India to  merge with or acquire Indian pharma companies. So MBA in pharmaceutical management would give you a stand to succeed in this largely profitable sector.

    Besides all this specialized courses, one more option which you may consider is general or plane MBA, which will help you understanding basic business models from a general point of view and open up the options for you to join any sector you are interested in depending on your will to leave dentistry or healthcare to be specific. However, when it comes to studying MBA, you may find it difficult to cope up with some of the subjects which may sound new and complex to you. But certainly nothing is said to be impossible and am saying this as we, dental graduates, can handle this things on a relatively easier note. Besides I am into my third trimester (out of six) in my institute doing plane MBA and I can safely say that it’s not that hard.

    The word success is always an individual dependent. For someone, the magnitude of success may be small and he/she may call that they succeeded in life. MBA is just a mode that one can pick up in your life as a career option; but that do not assure you the success. It is always your skills that come up first and the way you implement them, matters the most. In short success is not doing an MBA but MBA can be considered as one of the success mode in life. Rely on yourself than relying on any degree.

  

Disclaimer: This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own, based on research in real life and online portals.

Dr. Kishor Chindam

BDS, MGM Dental College, Navi Mumbai

PGDM, Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli (IIM Trichy)