HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT AS A CAREER

I receive a fairly large number of request from career aspirants for seeking advice on taking ‘healthcare management’ as a career choice. On Quora, where I try to regularly answer queries of students who are confused about ‘healthcare management’, I found that most questions are very rudimentary in nature, which is suggestive of a gross lack of awareness about this field amongst career aspirants. The questions also indicate that there are certain misconceptions about this field which results in confusion and apprehension amongst prospective students. As career choice could be one of the most important decision of anybody’s life, I am writing this post which is exclusively meant for those who are considering for taking admission in a masters level programme in healthcare and hospital management. The contents of this post are basic and I request my colleagues from industry to add on their advice/opinion in comments.

What is healthcare management?

Healthcare management is a field of management that has application in healthcare and related function. A healthcare manager will typically use his/her management knowledge and expertise in an organization that operates within the healthcare sphere.  Now, healthcare is an umbrella term that can encompass a variety of things. It can include Medical care, public health, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare insurance, healthcare IT/consulting, etc. A large number of healthcare managers work in hospitals and public health organizations but the proportion in other associated sectors such as healthcare IT, consulting, health insurance etc. is rapidly increasing.

GENERIC VS. BRANDED MEDICINE – WHAT IS THIS MESS?

Yesterday, I got a long WhatsApp message in which, our Prime Minister’s push for a law to make prescribing generic medcine mandatory for doctors, was heavily criticized. The message appears to be circulated by a group of doctors that alleges government’s move as irrational, biased and politically motivated. Many such messages and posts are in circulation, since the time PM spoke about prescribing generic in Surat. Few of my doctor friends whom I spoke to on this matter, appeared to be highly agitated on this matter. Time of India conducted a study where they found 73% doctors opposed to push for generic drugs. But on the other hand, government seems to be firm on pushing this agenda ahead. There has been a letter issued from MCI to doctors asking them to prescribe medicine with generic names, as far as possible. The letter was amended later as Indian Medical Association (IMA) got into semantics and issued a clarification that ‘as far as possible’ does not mean compulsory and doctors are free to prescribe what they want. Even on amended letter there is subjective interpretations being made by IMA and bodies in healthcare profession.

Understanding waiting time from perspective of patient’s psychology

Waiting time is an interesting phenomenon in healthcare. On one hand longer waiting time to meet a doctor can cause discontentment, very low or no waiting can rouse suspicion about the credibility of doctor. There is always a psychological aspect to waiting time, which most hospital manager seems to miss. Waiting time in hospitals are seen in direct link with customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction (check patient satisfaction feedback form), but to be better able to manage waiting time, we also need to understand how are they linked.