Many people need healthcare services every day, and it is a big challenge for healthcare organizations to provide care to each of them. In order to address this challenge, the profession of a healthcare manager was developed. Healthcare managers have many responsibilities in healthcare organizations, such as coordinating stakeholders, managing funds, educating the staff about policy changes, introducing new technologies, and empowering patients (Utica College, n.d.). All their duties are intended to ensure their organizations use the available resources efficiently, and patients receive high-quality, safe, timely, and cost-efficient healthcare. Any level healthcare facility should make use of healthcare management because it contributes to the efficiency of the healthcare organization and makes sure every patient is provided with world-class healthcare.
Healthcare organizations need healthcare management because healthcare nowadays requires high levels of coordination among multiple stakeholders. According to Begun et al. (2018), the need for coordination in healthcare is higher than in any other business because effective coordination ensures that patients are provided with timely and safe care. Researchers argue that healthcare managers’ coordination of such processes as “appointment scheduling, prior authorizations, and communication” improves the quality of care from mediocre to high levels (Begun et al., 2018, p. 146). According to Utica College (n.d.), which trains professionals in healthcare management, healthcare managers are needed at every organizational level, from supervisors overseeing everyday activities of the medical staff to executives managing the whole facility. Apart from coordinating medical professionals within an organization, healthcare managers play a significant role in establishing partnerships with other community organizations to provide comprehensive patient care. For example, healthcare managers can partner with social workers to help patients to cope with the social problems affecting their health. Overall, healthcare management makes a large contribution to healthcare organizations’ efficiency by means of coordination.
Apart from effective stakeholder coordination, healthcare management contributes to the success of healthcare organizations by improving the quality of care and, consequently, patient outcomes. Linnander et al. (2017) reviewed a number of studies and found out that effective healthcare management has a direct relationship to the excellent performance of healthcare systems. At the same time, poor healthcare management has been proven to prevent healthcare systems from achieving global healthcare goals, such as reducing child mortality or improving maternal health (Linnander et al., 2017). Qualified healthcare managers can help organizations allocate scarce resources and time more effectively, thus allowing for providing high-quality care to a larger number of patients. For example, if a healthcare manager notices that nurses are too busy and fatigued because they spend much of their time answering phone calls, he or she may consider delegating this task to medical assistants. This change will allow nurses to devote more time to their direct responsibilities, i.e., caring for patients, and it will improve the quality and safety of healthcare. Thus, healthcare managers are responsible for making decisions intended to improve patient outcomes.
Although the importance of healthcare management has been recognized by many researchers and practitioners, there is an opposite view of the need for healthcare managers. According to Begun et al. (2018), people often do not regard healthcare managers as professionals and believe that clinicians would cope with managing healthcare organizations better. However, it is the wrong view because management and care delivery require different skills and knowledge. Linnander et al. (2017) argue that in low-income countries, combining the roles of a healthcare manager and a clinician is a common practice, but it does not bring positive results. Clinicians in the position of managers cannot make the best decisions because they lack the necessary managerial skills. Moreover, the need to fulfill both roles leads to burnout, job dissatisfaction, and high attrition rates (Linnander et al., 2017). Indeed, it must be very exhausting for a clinician to accomplish managerial duties after he or she has seen dozens of patients during a day. Therefore, assigning clinicians to perform healthcare managers’ responsibilities is not a feasible option; healthcare organizations should consider hiring professional healthcare managers to address administrative issues.
To sum up, healthcare managers are essential employees within any healthcare facility. Healthcare management helps organizations operate more effectively due to coordination with multiple stakeholders. Effective coordination of the medical staff within an organization is also a responsibility of healthcare managers, and it ensures patients receive timely and high-quality care. Healthcare managers notice problems and challenges in a facility and make decisions on how to fix them. Thus, any healthcare organization that aims at improving cost-efficiency and quality of patient care should make use of healthcare management.
References
Begun, J., Butler, P., & Stefl, M. (2018). Competencies to what end? Affirming the purpose of healthcare management. The Journal of Health Administration Education, 35(2), 133–155. Web.
Linnander, E. L., Mantopoulos, J. M., Allen, N., Nembhard, I. M., & Bradley, E. H. (2017). Professionalizing healthcare management: A descriptive case study. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 6(10), 555–560. Web.
Utica College. (n.d.). What do hospital health care managers do? Web.