The healthcare sector is growing by leaps and bounds. Dr Pankaj Gupta talks about the opportunities in the field
The biggest gain for the healthcare sector from 2018 was the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), which the Government claims will create over a lakh new jobs in India’s $62 billion hospital sector alone. According to the IBEF, India also increased its doctor count to 841,104 in 2017. Apart from increased health consciousness, the burden of lifestyle diseases and rising incomes, healthcare will continue to see increased demand.
But healthcare personnel need not all be specialists in technical fields. There are various administrative and management roles that the ordinary graduate can train themselves to fill. Given below is a list of some of the most sought-after careers in this booming industry.
Assistant medical superintendents/ deputy medical superintendents: They ensure high standards of patient care and work to deliver on service quality standards along with defining and implementing performance parametres for doctors. They are experts in implementing and adhering to Standard Operative Procedures (SOP) in all clinical specialties, conducting regular medical audits on an ongoing basis and many others. They work to ensure that proper SOP are in place for the efficient admission, care & discharge of patients.
Hospital operations/administrators: They are responsible for safeguarding smooth operation of a hospital, hospital system or healthcare organisation. As the backbone of healthcare systems, healthcare administrators take on the responsibilities of supervising vast expanses of medical personnel. They work behind the scenes to make all types of health care facilities work as efficiently as possible and too can work on hiring doctors too, developing budgets, coming up with new policies and patient services to name a few.
Bio-medical waste management expert: The Ministry of Essential & Climate Change raised the BMW Rules on March 28 2016, through a gazette notification that every health care facility is mandated to segregate and dispose of bio-medical waste as per these rules. There is an imminent need to increase awareness and training/capacity Building of the different category of health functionary in the safe disposal of bio-medical waste from the Hospital and Health Centre.
Patient safety & quality management coordinators: This position guides staff within the hospital and seeks to improve the quality of patient care through assurance and innovation in partnership with local teams. This helps in the process to improve the reduction of medical errors and other factors that contribute to accidental patient outcomes. The patient safety and quality coordinator, together with senior clinical and operational managers, is responsible for the implementation of patient safety and quality improvement initiatives.
Managers/assistant managers at third-party administrators (TPAs): They function as an intermediary between the insurance provider and the insured. One can join as a managers and or assistant manager after pursuing a Healthcare Management degree. These specialists work with medical records, coding and billing professionals, and insurance companies to ensure that the plan benefits are properly applied.
District programme managers: This category of professionals is designated to the monitoring and planning of district health strategies, as in the National Rural Health Mission.
Consultants in international and national NGOs: NGO’s working in the health sector is another favoured destination.
Training coordinators: They are responsible for training, mapping out training plans, designing and developing training programmes. Hospital and healthcare management, being a specialised field, choosing the right institute to learn best practices is very important at the outset to remain relevant in an ever-changing dynamic employment scenario.
The writer is President, IIHMR University, Jaipur